In an election won in advance for the power in place, there remains room for suspense in Bangladesh before the legislative elections on Sunday. Will Anwara Islam Rani, 31, transgender and independent candidate, be able to beat former Aviation Minister Ghulam Muhammed Quader, leader of a party with long-standing ties to the current government?
“I had incredibly positive feedback from voters,” she told AFP Friday evening at the end of a campaign where hundreds of people flocked to her rallies. “It is possible to win if the vote is free and fair and people can go to the polls in a peaceful atmosphere,” she hoped. Anwara Islam Rani, an activist who has organized campaigns for transgender rights, says a small but determined group of supporters helped her organize her rallies and canvass voters door-to-door.
Third gender
Although born into a very conservative family in this predominantly Muslim country, she says those close to her supported her candidacy, which focused on better access to healthcare and employment. She claims to have found strong support in her constituency, in the town of Rangpur, despite a “campaign of slander” which began as soon as her candidacy began to take off.
Transgender women, referred to as “hijra” in the South Asian subcontinent, have enjoyed increasing legal recognition in Bangladesh over the past decade and are officially recognized as a third gender. But members of this community continue to often face discrimination in employment, and fight for greater rights and recognition, in matters of property and marriage for example. Several have already entered politics in Bangladesh, and a transgender woman, for the first time, was elected mayor of a rural town in 2021.
Opposition boycott
Anwara Islam Rani hopes to “open the doors for generations to come” whether she wins the election or not. “Anwara’s courage gives us hope,” says Latifur Rahman, who votes in the constituency, because “she is not just a candidate, she symbolizes a fight for dignity, equality and an inclusive society” .
But elsewhere, a certain inevitability surrounds the election. Dozens of opposition parties decided to boycott Sunday’s vote, saying it would be neither free nor fair, and fearing a repeat of the vast irregularities of previous elections won by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. This Saturday, seven opponents from the opposition party BNP were arrested, accused of sabotaging a train, the fire of which left four dead.
And if a victory for Anwara Islam Rani is possible, it is also because, in her constituency as in a few others, the Prime Minister’s Awami League did not present a candidate in order to avoid that the next Parliament be seen as a one-party institution.