A response to fair elections
This is in response to M. Inamul Haque's piece of April 21, "Fair election and caretaker govt." I feel that your comments that 'Bangladesh has not yet reached a point in its "democracy"...' is short-sighted in assuming that other countries, whether relatively developed or otherwise, have reached a point in democracy where they can trust each other in handling the election process. In the United States, for example, in the 2000 elections where George W. Bush was elected on a recount had gross involvement of his brother, a Republican and governor of Florida, in the Florida recounts (which was the state that decided the winner of the presidential elections). Not to mention that the lady who was in charge of the Election Commission was a self-declared Democrat who right after joining the Commission became a Republican. Additionally, it is common knowledge that voting districts in cities and counties in states such as Texas are demarcated and broken up in a way that the percentage of Democrats is controlled or limited to ensure that the overall vote of the district goes to the Republicans. Such politics and practices are clearly not fair. I'm not defending election practices in Bangladesh, but I'm saying it is a flawed perspective to think that truly free and fair elections exist anywhere in the world.
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