Since the Awami League's fourth consecutive victory in what appeared to be an essentially one-sided election, much of the discussion has centred around the future trajectory of politics and the potential impact on business and the economy. A crucial institutions - the Election Commission - should not  skip a closer scrutiny of its role in managing the election, which allowed the ruling party to manipulate the system adeptly and walk away unchallenged. During an event on January 18, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal, without taking any responsibility, finally acknowledged that ‘people's confidence in the electoral system had declined. The CEC’s realisation that ‘the election was not sufficiently participatory’, and “the crisis still remains as the polls had not been acceptable to some parties” makes us wonder how he could still claim that  “the nation could overcome a crisis through this election?”. His remarks at the thanks-giving event at the commission indi...

  Several economists, known for their economical use of words, find themselves echoing a sentiment on the recent polling day. After 2 p.m., Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman took to social media platform X, tweeting enigmatically about 'The presence of absence.' It wasn't challenging to grasp his implication. Subsequently, reports emerged indicating a voter turnout slightly over 26 per cent until 3 :00pm, suggesting that a majority of voters saw little purpose in going to a polling centre when the choices were seemingly limited to the Awami League and its proxy candidates. Even if we entertain the chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal's assertion of a 42 per cent turnout, with an unconvincing rate of voting making nearly one-third of the votes cast in the final hour, this figure falls well below the average voter participation in elections held under caretaker administrations in 1996, 2001, and 2008. The 2008 election, marking the commencement of AL's current rule w...