Voting in a Hybrid Regime by Ali Riaz

Author:Ali Riaz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811379567
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Their findings, especially about the impacts of elections are borne out in longitudinal studies on the survival of authoritarian regime. Drawing on data from 259 autocracies from 1946 to 2008, Knutsen, Nygård, and Wig concluded that ‘Elections are conducive to regime survival in the long run because they improve capacities for co-optation and repression’ (Knutsen et al. 2017). As for the repression, Kendall-Taylor and Frantz, warned us, ‘Dictators who use pseudo-democratic institutions are not necessarily less repressive than their institution-free counterparts.’

Since the 1990s, several studies have shown that hybrid regimes have rendered oppositions weak and fragile through repression to the extent that elections have become theatrics and, in the process, the very essence of democracy is neutered. In various forms of authoritarianism, except closed authoritarianism, the democratic institutions are used as means of obtaining and exercising political authority (Levitsky and Way 2002, 52). Therefore, elections become a high-stakes event, as ‘the legitimacy of policies enacted by the ruling party solely comes from its victory in elections—whether the elections are fair or not’ (Kilinc 2017). The experiences of various kinds of hybrid regimes such as electoral authoritarian and competitive authoritarianism show that their actions render elections instruments of authoritarian rule rather than “instruments of democracy” (Schedler 2006b) .

These issues loomed large, but were not discussed at length, as the opposition in Bangladesh continued to explore their options prior to the election in 2018. However, unfortunately, there was a lack of clarity among analysts and opposition leaders about the nature of the Bangladeshi state which gradually emerged since 2006. While the opposition continue to encounter the adverse political situation, witness the shrinking of democratic space, observe the domestication of media, and see the progressive dissipation of the civil society hardly did they recognize the paradigm shift in the governance. That a new form of regime had emerged seems to remain beyond their comprehension. How a triumvirate of civil administration, law enforcing agencies, and the ruling party has come into being and how the boundaries between deep state and political party have been blurred remain unexplored, and so were the implications of these for the forthcoming election. The BNP was overwhelmed by the state repression, gripped with the absence of its higher leadership, unwilling to introspect about its previous mal-governance and its alignment with the Jamaat-i-Islami which opposed the independence. Other opposition parties, particularly the left, continue to see the forthcoming election as a mode of alteration of power. History of previous regimes, political movements, and the business-as-usual mindset left the opposition with very little option. They were eventually faced with the two options: to participate or to boycott.

Use of election boycott as a political strategy, particularly in the developing world, has grown over time. Beaulieu and Hyde recorded that between 1990 and 2002 14% of multiparty elections have been boycotted (Beaulieu and Hyde 2009). The percentage has increased in the late 1990s and early 2000s than the previous decade. In the early 1990s, the average was 10%, but it reached an average of 18% in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Beaulieu 2006b).

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