Why has the ‘little man’ gone missing in elections?

On 8 March 2020, Dhaka detected its first case of Covid-19. Thirteen days later on 21 March 2020, the Dhaka-10 by-polls began early in the morning.
 
The seat had fallen vacant following the resignation of Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, the current Dhaka South mayor.
 
By the time the poll day arrived, Dhaka was already gripped by panic. Amidst the fears of contracting the infection, only 5% or around 16,000 voters turned up to exercise their franchise. It was the lowest ever turnout in the country's electoral history.
 
At one point, Nazrul Islam Babul, councillor of Dhaka South City Corporation ward-16, was overheard saying over phone, "Send your wife and children. Vote casting is very poor."
 
A few months later on 17 October, the by-polls to Dhaka-5 began. With over 1,200 newly detected Covid-19 cases, fear prevailed among voters. The turnout was a miserly 10.43%.
 
While the pandemic can be a reason for the low voter turnout back in 2020, what could have been the reason for the thin presence of the electorate in by-polls to six constituencies, especially the much-discussed Brahmanbaria-2 polls on Wednesday.
 
Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal conceded that the average voter turnout in the by-elections to six constituencies – vacated by BNP leaders following their resignation in December – was 15-25%.
 
In Brahmanbaria-2, which has been in the headlines for the preceding weeks, the turnout was as low as 16%, the lowest among the six constituencies.

The Awami League had honoured Abdus Sattar, giving him a veritable free ride. Three AL candidates quit the race. Another candidate went missing, generously or otherwise. He was found on Thursday, the day after the election.
 
Meanwhile, Sattar, the former adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, won the by-elections as an independent candidate by securing 40,817 votes.
 
His nearest rival bagged a miserly 9,580 votes.
 
For him, this was a walkover, with a tacit seal of approval from the ruling AL.
 
His resurrection, following his resignation from Parliament in December and the expulsion from the party he had been so closely entrenched in, had all the makings of a blockbuster.
 
But few people, ie, voters, came to see the climax.

The 'little man' theory  

While discussing the importance of voters in a democracy, both the Bangladesh and Indian supreme courts in different judgments referred to a famous comment made by Winston Churchill more than seven decades ago on "the little man, walking into a little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper".

This speech during a parliamentary session in 1944 can be aptly dubbed the "little man theory." 

The incidents of miserably low turnout in the polls held in recent years in Bangladesh as discussed above is telling of the key fact: the "little man" has gone missing in the elections.

Where can they then be found and how can we bring them back? And when did they start going missing?

 From B'Baria to Magura
 
The Brahambaria incident has fostered discussions about Magura-2 elections of 1994 on social media.

The Magura-2 seat had fallen vacant following the death of AL MP.

The BNP was in power had the time. The EC decided to conduct the by-poll. In the face of humiliating defeats by the AL in city corporations, the ruling party knew it had to win.

What followed was mindless rigging and an incident which has become the symbol of the corrupt elections in Bangladesh.

When the BNP-candidate was declared the winner, the AL began their agitation to bring in a non-partisan election time government.

The Election Commission at the time did not bother. It termed the polls "free and fair".

This scourge of Magura has since dangled over the head of every election.

The ballot stuffing has also been repeated, resulting in the creation of the moniker "midnight elections".

In Brahmanbaria, however, the AL did not snatch a seat. They, rather, overtly gifted it to Sattar who resigned just weeks ago from the constituency following his party BNP's decision, but contested the by-polls defying the expulsion from the party.   
 
No heroes to be found

Hero Alom was supposed to be a big draw. But not even a portion of his followers showed up on voting day.

The road to the election for social media content creator Ashraful Alam, popularly known as Hero Alam and an independent candidate for the Bogura-4 and Bogura 6 by-elections, had been a hard one.

A day before the election, Hero Alom boldly declared that he would hold his ground at any cost this time around

"I was assaulted during the 2018 national polls, but my support remains formidable this time, and I will hold the ground at any cost," he said.

His formidable support, however, went missing and another low voter turnout was seen.

There was no Covid-19 this time around.

A returning officer said that it was the candidates responsibility to bring in voters. Perhaps the biting inflation had made the commute unaffordable? 

But what about before Covid-19 and before the economic crisis?

In the 2020 city polls, when voting machines were used for the first time, the records showed that only 27.17% voters went to the polls, the lowest ever in a city poll.

The trend seen in the Chattogram city polls was no different. Where voter turnout was 53.6% in 2005, it fell to 22.5% in 2020.

There had always been incidents of even the dead voting. Perhaps the lack of fingerprints in ghosts results in them being unable to use EVMs?

But what about living, breathing voters? Apart from candidates failing to draw voters, returning officers also blamed the cold winter warming. Climate change, apparently, had found yet another victim: democracy.

Despite the hiccups, one thing was certain: the Constitution had won. The Election Commission had duly held an election within 90 days of a seat becoming vacant. The quality of their product is another topic altogether.