The Mirpur Parliamentary by-Election in Bangladesh

Abstract

Voting behavior, electoral politics, and national and local-level elections are institutionalized topics of research in comparative politics, political geography, and political economy, and will draw increasing attention with the recent wave of democratization in many hitherto authoritarian parts of the world. However, instances are rare in which a single constituency by-election to a parliament has received attention. By-elections occur at haphazard times during the life of a government, usually have low turnout, and occasionally produce results that seem out of line with the prevailing national political opinion. In democratic political systems, especially in parliamentary systems, a by-election is often treated as a barometer for testing an incumbent government's degree of popularity. The electoral analysis of a single constituency can acquire special significance for several reasons: the constituency's strategic importance, its socioeconomic and cultural characteristics, its voting patterns in the preceding general election, and the current national political sentiment. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the Dhaka11 (Mirpur) by-election to the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) of Bangladesh held on February 3, 1993. To demonstrate why this by-election deserves special academic attention, it must be put in its appropriate context. The semi-dictatorial Ershad regime had collapsed in the face of an urbanbased, middle-class movement spearheaded by mainstream political alliances and parties and actively supported by various professional groups. Ershad handed over power to a caretaker government headed by Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed in December 1990, the first succession of power to a civilian regime in independent Bangladesh. All previous successions had been effected by the military at gunpoint. The main responsibility of the caretaker government was to organize and conduct free and fair parliamen-