A woman's message to the government we just elected : Shared by Sharif Shafiq Alam

 

As expected!! Important aspects of this election were that it was fair and free, people could exercise their rights to universal adult franchise without fear and intimidation!!

Only the coming days and months will tell if people's aspirations will be fulfilled!!

Shafiq

Beaming with pride, a group of young women voters, who just cast their ballots for the first time, pose for a celebratory photo outside Dhanmondi Girls’ High School polling centre yesterday. Photo: Orchid Chakma

A woman's message to the government we just elected

Author: Naziba Basher

Publication: The Daily Star

Date: February 14, 2026

Click here for the article

Summary:

For the first time in her adult life, the author stood in a voting line that felt real, with no predetermined result and no hollow theatre of democracy. This generation practiced citizenship rather than performed it, making a calculated choice rather than a romantic one. Voters faced a choice between politics that openly imagines a future where women shrink, with public lives conditional and negotiated, and a party whose history carries intimidation and extortion. 

Women voted not out of inspiration but calculation, choosing the lesser danger so the greater would not become law. This was conditional trust, not loyalty—a probationary contract, not a mandate of love. Women were central to that contract, voting against fear more than for ideology, to prevent lives from being negotiated in theological committees and to preserve space for argument and resistance. 

The author demands the new government deliver governance instead of gangs, rule of law instead of influence, and safety in streets and workplaces. Women need structural protection, not symbolic respect—cities where women returning home at night is routine, reformed public transport with swift punishment for harassment, and policing where reporting violence doesn't feel like negotiating humiliation. Workplace safety must move beyond corporate slogans with strengthened labor monitoring and functional complaint mechanisms. Digital abuse must be treated as civic crimes. The author warns that if extortion continues under new banners, if student wings become private militias, or if local strongmen become untouchable, voters will notice. Democracy is the days after ballots are counted, when power chooses restraint over habit.

Quotes:

"This was not loyalty -- it was conditional trust. We escorted you into parliament knowing exactly who you have been, and hoping -- not assuming -- who you might become. You were not handed a mandate of love. You were handed a probationary contract."

"Women do not need symbolic respect; we need structural protection."

"We did not vote so you could 'allow' women to live freely. We voted so you would build a state where freedom does not depend on who is in power."

"We understand compromise, but we do not accept betrayal."