So the old joke is back in currency: Dhaka City’s two municipal corporations will have ‘elections’ again in January now that the supposed term of the previous city bosses is over. Sounds very normal and democratic and civic, except it’s a cruel parody that most Western journalists–never mind the local ones–simply gulp in stride. Sure there will be ballot boxes and CNN style running totals by the hour and even a few candidates chosen as token ‘opposition’ by the ruling junta’s affiliated ‘parties’. But the result will be as well known from the well before the first ‘vote’ is cast as the night is after sunset. Of course, it is possible that a mixture of threats and cajoling may prompt the main pro-democracy opposition BNP to put up a sacrificial lamb but that routine is well known too: even before the ink is dry on the nomination papers, thousands of BNP activists will be locked up without charges, let alone verdicts, only to be let go the day after elections; any attempts to hold canvassing rallies by the BNP candidates will be smashed by weapon-wielding cadres of the regime’s inhouse terror outfit BCL; and finally, just to make sure of things, BCL thugs will be deployed around polling stations to make sure that the citizenry votes ‘correctly’.
The day after, the editors of the major dailies will bemoan ‘irregularities’….and in the evening line up to partake in Radisson receptions hosted by some minister to fete the new ‘mayors elect’. This pathetic mixture of cheap momentary outrage and deeply ingrained sycophancy is the new normal for Bangladesh’s intelligentsia.
Millenials–or at least the more privileged ones among them–will post selfies about their ‘votes’ and pen unoriginally profound posts about how they hope now traffic will improve and the city streets will be clean and what not. Living in a one party one family dictatorship robs even millenials of any sense of discernment. And you can’t really blame them too much: when their parents and their teachers and their bosses all sold their souls to the beck and call of 10 taka samosas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY7cEc0h8G8, you cannot but have pity on their cult-like naivete.