Gano Front: Small fry challenging 'big fish'

No walkover, whatever big party you may be—is the motto that drives the Gano Front to contest national elections, regardless of the vote counts, according to its top leader.

Since its registration in 2008, the party has contested all the three parliamentary elections held until 2018. Its candidates scored between 0.01% and 0.02% of total votes cast in those elections and lost their security deposits.

But the results have not held Gano Front back from participating in the 12th Jatiya Sangsad election scheduled for 7 January.

Talking to The Business Standard, the party's Chairman Md Zakir Hossain said, "The party's stance is that the Awami League or BNP will not be allowed to come to power unopposed. With this stance, we have fielded candidates according to the party's capacity in every election."

The party is fielding 25 candidates in the upcoming 12th Jatiya Sangsad election with the party's "fish" symbol.

After securing Election Commission registration in 2008, Gano Front participated in the ninth, 10th and 11th JS polls.

In 2008, Gano Front's candidates contested for 14 seats in the ninth JS polls. However, they could bag only 4,009 votes in all seats combined, with an average of 286 votes. All the candidates' security deposits had to be forfeited as each received 0.01% of votes in each seat.

According to the Representation of the People Order, 1972, if a candidate does not get one-eighth of the total number of votes cast in a constituency, his or her security deposit with the Election Commission will be forfeited.

With only one candidate in the 10th national election of 2014, the party bagged only 2,717 votes. The security deposit had to be forfeited again as it got only 0.02% of votes in the seat.

In their third attempt, in the 11th JS polls in 2018, the party fielded 13 candidates and got 5,277 votes combined.

Receiving only 0.01% of the votes in each seat, all 13 candidates got an average of 405 votes. Security deposits had to be forfeited again.

The party chief has grievance against the psyche of Bangladesh's electorate.

"Bangladeshi voters cast their votes by seeing the symbol, they do not vote based on the ideals, goals, or qualifications of a political party or its candidate. We will continue to take part in the elections as long as our party exists. No matter how many votes we get," said Zakir Hossain.

When asked whether he is a candidate in the 12th JS polls, Zakir Hossain said, "I had a plan to contest the election for the Dhaka-8 and Narsingdi Sadar seats. However, I could not submit the nomination form to the election officer's office because I was late to make all the preparations on 30 November [deadline]."

The party does not have any visible political activities. It has no website or Facebook page either. 

About the financials of the party, Zakir Hossain said, "We organise fewer programmes, so our cost is also less. Our average spending is Tk15,000 per month. This money comes from the donations of party leaders and well-wishers."

For the 12th JS polls, 64 leaders and activists of the Gano Front collected nomination forms. However, only 25 of them submitted their nominations to the Election Commission.