The US joint National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) Technical Assessment Mission has said Bangladesh’s Jan 7 national election saw “less violence” but its quality was “undermined” by other factors.

After the American institutes published a report, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud on Sunday said it does not matter what they say because the quality of the last election was better than any polls in the past.

NDI and IRI sent a pre-election monitoring team in October ahead of the general election. Following their report, another team observed Bangladesh's election campaign, voting and the aftermath of the polls from Dec 20 to Feb 1.

In the report published on Saturday, the institutes said: “Stakeholder feedback indicates that the 2024 election period, including the campaign period, election day and immediate aftermath, had less physical and online violence compared to previous election cycles.

“This was due primarily to the absence of nationwide partisan competition and the state’s increased focus on election security.”

The report added: “Nevertheless, the quality of the January election was undermined by incidents of state, ruling party, and opposition violence, as well as a pre-election environment characterised by zero-sum politics, violence among political actors, contracting civic space, and worsening freedoms of expression and association.”

Mahmud said: “NDI/IRI acknowledged in their report that this election had less violence than any elections in the past.”

“And they talked about quality. Look, the quality of this election was better and finer than the past polls in the country, and elections in other countries of the sub-continent. So, it doesn’t matter what the NDI/IRI says.”

He noted that the government was not dismissing or accepting the report. “We’re examining all the reports by the friendly nations.”
 

During the election period, the report said, the Bangladesh government took several actions to promote security, including increasing the budget for election security, deploying a larger number of security personnel for a longer period of time, and forming ad hoc coordination units to oversee the security response.

“Still, many stakeholders made credible accusations that state security services and other government institutions at times unevenly enforced election rules to favour the ruling Awami

League. The scale of the government’s efforts to arrest opposition members and restrict or disrupt opposition political activities was not satisfactorily justified and generated a widespread perception of politicised law enforcement during the election period.”

The mission found election violence by non-state actors took two primary forms.

The first was between competing candidates and supporters. Campaign-driven election violence correlated with the competitiveness of a constituency and was typically between AL-backed candidates and AL-affiliated independent candidates, although former BNP candidates were also targeted.

Incidents of this violence reportedly entailed clashes between groups of supporters, attacks on campaign processions, destruction or arson of campaign offices, verbal threats, and vandalism or arson of property.

The second form of non-state election violence was driven by the opposition’s boycott effort, the report said.

“While the opposition consistently called for nonviolence, its strategy of rallies, blockades, and

strikes to prevent the election descended at times into violence, including incidents of arson, physical assault, vandalism, intimidation, and the death of a police officer.”