Bangladesh lagging behind ‘absolute democracy’

United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2007 declared September 15 as the International Day of Democracy with the aim of encouraging the world’s governments to strengthen democracy.

UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 21(3) describes the relation between Democracy and Human Rights stating: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.”

The point said this ‘will’ shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections… and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Bangladesh has ranked 76th on the democracy index 2020 of Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), four steps ahead of the 2019 index.

But the report categorised Bangladesh in the ‘hybrid regime’ category, which stated that ‘substantial irregularities’ often prevent the elections from being free and fair. 

Moreover, Freedom House, a US based neutral watchdog, placed Bangladesh in the latest list of 2020 as ‘partly free’ country evaluating a score of 39 out of 100.

The report based on multiple data shows a significant downward trend in the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) and Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) while Liberal Component Index (LCI), Egalitarian Component Index (ECI), Participatory Component Index (PCI) and Deliberative Component Index (DCI) were almost the same over the past 10 years.

Professor Dr Shantanu Majumder of the Department of Political Science at Dhaka University said, "We have to remember that Bangladesh is a post-colonial as well as a Muslim majority South Asian country while understanding the state of democracy in the country.”

The state of democracy in Bangladesh cannot be totally different from the experience of the countries in these categories. We also need to keep in mind that absolute democracy has been missing from all over the world for the last 15 years,” Prof Majumder said.

"A free and fair election in regular intervals is the first precondition for democracy and at the same time, we should remember that only a free and fair election cannot guarantee liberal democracy. Vast attention needs to be given to the equal rights of ethnic, religious, and intellectual minorities, and pluralism and diversity," added he.