London, Feb 11 (NationPress) The national election in Bangladesh on Thursday is not expected to significantly alter the political scene, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) likely to take power, the Jamaat-e-Islami gaining traction, and a handful of students potentially entering parliament.

While there may be a shift in power within this South Asian nation, the entrenched arrangement — "affordable labor, weak institutions, funds sent abroad, and managed dissent" — is set to persist, as noted in a report published on Wednesday.

“From a distance, the upcoming election in Bangladesh resembles an age-old morality tale, pitting Sensible Centrism against Unhinged Islamism — the reliable dichotomy that recurs repeatedly from Morocco to Malaysia. Approximately 128 million voters are anticipated to head to polling stations tomorrow, with two out of five having never experienced a genuinely free and fair election. With around 150 parties registered, the resulting ballots are lengthy enough to serve as picnic mats,” highlighted British media outlet UnHerd.

“However, in Bangladesh, the prevailing sentiment is not one of excitement but rather boredom, as voters face a Hobson’s choice disguised as pluralism. This is democracy as theater: grand, loud, somewhat impressive — and entirely irrelevant. In reality, nothing is truly at stake,” it conveyed.

The report indicates that the likely victor is the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is polling comfortably above 50% and is currently led by Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in self-imposed exile.

“His supporters, both domestically and internationally, portray him as a tempered liberal: a reliable figure, sobered by history and refined by absence. His voters, who back him faute de mieux, have longer memories. During the BNP’s terms in office in the 1990s and 2000s, power was wielded by his mother, Khaleda Zia — the formidable widow of soldier-president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in a failed coup in 1981. She shattered the glass ceiling as Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister and soon after broke records, presiding over a nation that endured the rare distinction of being ranked the world’s most corrupt for four consecutive years by Transparency International,” it elaborated.

“Rahman himself was later described in leaked diplomatic cables as a walking symbol of kleptocracy. However, in Bangladeshi politics, memory is a luxury,” it continued.

The report pointed out that the main contender is the Jamaat-e-Islami, the once-banned Islamist party now experiencing a revival under the leadership of Shafiqur Rahman, a “solemn scold, skull-capped and maned.” With a disciplined grassroots operation and an electorate “tired of secular strongmen,” the party is polling around 30%.

“The Jamaat asserts it has reformed — no theocracy, no Taliban theatrics — yet urban liberals remain rightly skeptical. Notably, the party has not nominated a single female candidate and has also suggested limiting women’s working hours. Additionally, there is a sense of amateurism: hardly surprising for a party that has never managed anything larger than a student union,” it observed.