Opinion: AL’s crude tactics to stop Khaleda

Dhaka city is in a festive mood. Festoons and streamers deck the roads and alleys. People are gathering in election camps. Mayoral candidates are on whirlpool campaigning. Commissioner candidates are bringing out support processions. It all matches what democracy should look like, except what happened yesterday.

When BNP chief Khaleda Zia went on a campaign for her mayoral candidate Tabith Awal, she was obstructed by Awami League activists at Uttara. They threw sticks at her security personnel’s vehicle. She had to give up her pursuit and come back. AL, as it has been reported, will carry on similar ‘protests’ wherever she will go.

This is a rude tactics applied by AL devoid of any democratic norms to stop a legitimate campaigning. It smacks of totalitarian mentality, crude and lowly. It only shows that AL is so impatient with any party that opposes it that it will leave no effort unapplied to choke any opposition.

It also shows the ruling party is nervous about the election result although it has a popular candidate in Annisul Huq. Such Putinian tactics will only help make the BNP candidate popular and will not help AL’s intention.

It is beyond any democracy-loving person’s understanding why an election campaign should be stopped like this. There is no legal bar on her campaigning. The AL’s actions only prove the BNP allegations correct – that the government has been unjustifiably obstructing the opposition’s politics. In a democracy the opposition must be given space, but what the government has been doing including the confinement of Khaleda at her home looks more like an authoritarian regime’s behaviour.