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Weighing the odds

Ashfaq Wares Khan take a look at where the parties are as the election approaches
31 1 /mH 9'1 to '(.HMl
N early September, dark despair was coursing through the core of the BNP From the top brass to the rank and file,
there was a hardening awareness that to go to elections in barely two months time would be to court disaster. For some, the talk was no longer defeat, but outright annihilation. A boycott was in serious play.
Across town, the BNP's cries of despair were being drowned out by the clamour of Awami League's (AL) premature crowings of self-congratulation. There was talk of an absolute majority of 210 seats in parliament, leaders were discussing possible cabinet posts, while a select few were working hard on a vision for Bangladesh 2021 -an outline for a decade in power.
Two months on and a growing number of political pundits are asking the question: can the AL win the election at all? Forget an absolute majority, could they even muster 151 seats required to form a government? Those AL members complacent enough to still predict a landslide are now met with harsh rebukes and dark tales of 1991.
Both parties are already on manoeuvres. In November, the AL was forced to entertain ideas of an Ershad presidency. The BNP humiliated itself by disposing of their own farcical ultimatum when their
Ashfaq Wares Khan is a freelance journalist and political analyst
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alliance partner, Jamaat-e-Islami, threatened to run in the elections alone. Fears of a boycott waned as it became increasingly clear that BNP's opposition stemmed from unmet demands rather than an in principle objection to elections under the current administration.
What has emerged is an election matrix that resembles the traditional tight race between two political foes, rather than 'a new political landscape. New political players, such as the Progressive Democratic Party, barely rate a mention. Despite protests by the big two that the government will continue to undercut their campaigns and the media's willingness to entertain the farcical circus surrounding their insignificant demands, the fundamentals of Bangladesh politics remain the same.
Hence, the most significant question is how much would revelations about the last BNP-led alliance government affect their chances on December 29. in effect, it's more of a referendum on their last term than the last two years of caretaker government rule.
Fa the full version of this article ptease read Foran Election Special, available with The DaJy Star on Monday, December 8