Will voters pull the trigger?

"A fundamental and welcome change in the political environment is possible -- but only if the voters pull the trigger. When you examine the latest round of pre-election polls, what is striking is the stability of public attitudes over the preceding months. In this week's Post-ABC News poll, for example, President Bush has a job approval score of 39 percent, with 60 percent disapproving. Eleven months earlier, in November 2005, the scores were identical.

"What all this suggests is a settled judgment on the part of the majority of Americans that the current leadership of the nation is not doing the job that people expect. This is the government the people chose in 2004, but now they are showing clear signs of buyer's remorse.

"What is driving public opinion is an overall impression that those in office -- meaning mainly Republicans -- have let things slide out of control and need to be relieved. The failure of this Congress to act meaningfully on immigration, energy, health care or other vital needs has left the public frustrated -- and members of Congress feeling embattled. "

"Fortunately, the voters have the power -- if they pull the trigger on Election Day -- to create a new plot for the Washington drama. That kind of fundamental change in the political environment is possible -- indeed, it is imminent and will be welcomed.

But it will happen only if voters pull the trigger. Elections do matter, and this one matters more than most."

The reason that Broder's ideas caught my attention is that there is a striking similarity between the political environment in America and Bangladesh; though the countries are miles apart otherwise. But then, this is what is called democracy -- practiced worldwide, its ideology is the same; that whenever elected governments fail to fulfill the commitments made to their citizens, the citizens exercise their right to choose their representatives.

In Bangladesh, too, there is lot of pre-election speculation for the upcoming 2007 elections. Like the Americans, the Bangladeshis, too, openly declare that the present leadership has failed to fulfill the commitments made to the citizens, specially with respect to power, price of food items, containing corruption, ensuring human rights, etc. Therefore, they need to exercise their right to vote to power another party which will form a government that will fulfill its commitments.

But the pre-elections polls survey records indicated in Nazim Kamran Choudhury's article "A New Arithmetic," published on October 6 in The Daily Star, is absolutely stunning.

Firstly, due to record of bad governance by the AL and BNP-led alliance, the core base (vote bank) of all parties has been massively eroded, and secondly, 53% of the voters are un-decided.

Choudhury states that: "It seems that voters are disenchanted with the whole political system, and that they are frustrated with the lack of a viable choice in future election."

In a democratic system, the most important requirement is the utilization of the citizen's right to vote to choose the representatives; there is no alternative. My personal opinion is that if citizens don't exercise their right to select qualified candidates they cannot expect economic and social justice from the party that forms the government. So the main screening test begins here.

The main question that is now in the minds of the Bangladeshis is this: How can we know who will be the right candidate? My opinion is that we should, like in America, try to know the candidate, his educational qualification, records of past performance, and his present agenda for development of the constituency he would represent in the parliament.

In America, as Broder states in the same article of his: "This election campaign has been a learning experience for candidates of both parties, incumbents and challengers alike. They have been bombarded with messages from their constituents, telling them that the public is tired of the partisan bickering, tired of the gridlock and eager to elect people who will focus on the real problems and work together to find solutions. If that lesson is reinforced by the election results, Washington will change."

Mr Choudhury in his article speculates that Bangladesh is also reaching political maturity whereby voters will tend to look for performance rather than politics, and this suggestion should be accepted by the leaders of all the parties should they intend to be identified as a credible and contesting party. Also, there remains a possibility that many from amongst the 53% undecided voters may then decide to vote, which could turn the tables in favour of the right party.

Badrul Islam is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star