Democratic Local Government Election in Bangladesh: Understanding the Missing Middles

Free, fair and level playing field of election are prerequisite for ensuring democratic norms and values in governance structure at both central and local government of a state. Local government is a center for practicing such democracy at the root level through which local people’s development is ensured. And Election in local government institutions is a way of people’s participation by which they choose representatives through practicing their democratic rights. In this regard, the objective of this paper is to comprehend the missing middles in local government elections from a democratic viewpoint. According to the findings of this paper, Bangladesh’s local government election system is beset by serious problems that are major roadblocks to democracy. Issues include party-based election, nomination business and harassment, absence of people’s participation, losing voting rights, vote rigging, Violence and Intimidation, and ineffective election commission etc. This paperconcludes with some suggestions for policy makers and respective authorities so that they can restructure the entire local government election system in Bangladesh to ensure democratic participation of all political parties in the election.