Awami League's digital campaign

The Awami League, one of Bangladesh's oldest political parties, has set out to make the full use of social and electronic media to add extra zing to its election campaign.

Posters, banners, leaflets have always been the mainstay of polls battles but now documentaries, videos, and songs are not simply streaming through TVs into voters’ living rooms but are also being weaved into social networks.

Many Awami League leaders are calling this a ‘digital’ campaign, giving credit to party President Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy for giving it shape with the help of Hasina's sister Sheikh Rehana’s son Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby.

The campaign places the spotlight on many facets of the 1971 Liberation War together with highlighting the government’s development initiatives.

But BNP, the main opposition party, has dubbed the projected development profile as a ‘set of lies’.

As per the Constitution, the 10th national election will have to be held any time between Oct 25 and Jan 24 next year.

But the BNP is pressing for a non-party caretaker government to oversee the polls, a demand the ruling Awami League has rejected outright.

The resultant chasm is threatening to plunge the country into a deep political crisis, feel observers.

The BNP has already threatened to boycott the national election if held under a party-led government, and has announced a tough anti-government movement from Oct 24, saying the time has not yet come to prepare for polls.

The Awami League, however, has already launched its election campaign in the face of the opposition’s ‘war’ preparations.

The ruling party's music video, 'Joy Bangla', is already on facebook and Youtube.

Joy has posted his observations about the music video on his facebook page.

“I hope you all remember the classic songs of our Liberation. The promise of our Liberation movement was interrupted by the coup of 1975 and subsequent military and quasi-military regimes. Our Awami League Government has been fulfilling the promise of that unfinished revolution. Bangladesh has made more progress in every sector in the past five years than in any time after 1975, but there is more work to be done,” Joy said.

The video shows a group of youths reviving the spirit of independence as they tour Bangladesh on bicycles, ending their journey at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in capital Dhaka.

The party has also prepared publicity capsules of 20-50 seconds listing the present government’s successes and the differences between the Awami League and BNP regimes.

Documentaries on women workers of the readymade garment industry and an 11-minute skit on women’s health are also part of the campaign basket.

In a meeting last month of the Awami League’s publicity and publication sub-committee, Redwan Mujib Siddique Bobby had said that today’s information technology would be used to the maximum in the Awami League’s election campaign.

The party’s deputy publicity secretary Ashim Kumar Ukil told bdnews24.com, “We want to make the full use of information technology, including 3G facilities.”

Among those involved in this new campaign style are the party’s cultural secretary Assaduzzaman Nur, executive council member Nasrul Hamid Bipu, the PM’s special media assistant Mahbubul Haque Shakil.