Election Campaign Ends, Online Social Media Buzz Continues Ahead of February 12 Polls
The intense election campaign, which began after the allocation of election symbols, officially ended at 7:30 am on Tuesday, 10 February, following a continuous 20-day stretch of political activities. With campaigning now over, candidates and voters are waiting for the 13th National Parliamentary Election and the referendum scheduled to be held on 12 February.
According to the Representation of the People Order (RPO) and the Election Commission’s code of conduct for political parties and candidates, all forms of election campaigning must cease 48 hours before the start of voting. However, voting has already taken place through IT-supported postal ballots, with 5,067 inmates, including 56 VIPs, casting their votes. Meanwhile, as of 11:00 am on Sunday, 503,441 expatriate voters registered through the ‘Postal Vote BD’ app had exercised their voting rights.
On 12 February, a total of 127,711,899 voters are expected to cast their ballots at 42,779 polling stations across the country. Candidates representing 51 registered political parties are eagerly seeking the mandate of these voters.
The phase of public rallies, direct voter outreach, and door-to-door canvassing has already concluded. Candidates visited homes seeking votes by releasing their election manifestos and making various promises. Some sent SMS messages, while others appealed to voters through WhatsApp and other messaging platforms. Voice calls were also used, along with digital ad boxes. At the same time, election campaigning continued intensely across online social media platforms.
Although campaigning officially ended at 7:00 am, indirect electioneering is still visible on Facebook, the country’s most popular social media platform. While candidates and parties are not posting new content explicitly asking for votes, followers and supporters continue to share posts, photo cards, and videos. On almost every party’s verified Facebook page, the most recent posts feature video messages addressed to the nation by party chiefs. In that sense, although formal campaigning has stopped, various strategies to seek votes appear to have intensified in the digital space, further fueling political fervor online.
DBTech/SM/MU/OR
