In majoritarian political systems, small opposition parties often confront structural asymmetries that threaten their survival, relevance, and institutional integrity. When a dominant party commands a brute parliamentary majority, the risks extend beyond electoral defeat to include legal marginalisation, resource starvation, repression, and discursive erasure.
On February 12, 13th National Parliamentary Election, which saw landslide victory for the BNP with 212 seats and Jamaat-led alliance jostled to amass 77 seats, was held almost peacefully. With two-thirds majority in the parliamentary, BNP has every possibility to disprove the leviathan theory, being very transparent, implementing rule of law and committed to the plethora of promises placed in their either 31-point charter or their manifesto.
But if things proceed traditionally, being carried away by the emotion of total dominance, this situation may invite some dangers. This article will focus on ten possible principal dangers likely to be faced by small opposition parties like Jamaat-led alliance who have less than 100 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad. Under such condition, the article will propose some strategic pathways grounded in comparative political scholarship.
Drawing on theories of competitive authoritarianism, cartel party systems, democratic backsliding and other theories, the study outlines institutional, organisational, and communicative reforms that may enhance resilience.
Robert A Dahl in his book ‘Polyarchy’ wrote democracy presupposes institutionalised contestation. Yet when a ruling party consolidates a commanding legislative majority, particularly in weakly institutionalised systems, competition may persist formally while becoming substantively constrained. Such a situation is conceptualised by Levitsky as “competitive authoritarian,” where incumbents manipulate institutions to disadvantage opponents without fully abolishing electoral politics.
In these contexts, small opposition parties face not merely electoral competition but structural asymmetry.
Brute majority may invite many more dangers including those of ‘tyranny of the majority’. Some of the key dangers that small opposition parties encounter and some ways forward to ward off them.
Institutional marginalisation: The dominant majority can amend parliamentary rules, curtail debate time, weaken committee representation, and bypass opposition oversight (Fish, 2006). Institutional voice diminishes, reducing visibility and policy influence. Such a situation also runs a risk of symbolic participation without substantive power.
Electoral engineering: Incumbents may redraw constituencies, which is called gerrymandering, alter electoral thresholds, or modify campaign regulations to structurally disadvantage small parties. Pippa Norris in his Why Elections Fail wrote about the risks involved with systemic underrepresentation and vote-seat disproportionality.
Legal and regulatory harassment: Administrative probes, burdensome registration requirements, or selective enforcement of laws can be deployed to exhaust opposition resources (Schedler, 2002), risking organisational paralysis and reputational damage.
Resource asymmetry: Dominant parties often benefit from state patronage networks, business alliances, and media access (Katz & Mair, 1995). Opposition parties struggle financially and organisationally, risking inability to mobilize, campaign, or sustain grassroots structures.
Media exclusion and narrative control: State-aligned or captured media may marginalise opposition voices. Digital disinformation campaigns can distort public perception (Tucker et al., 2018), risking agenda-setting monopoly by the ruling party.
Judicial capture: If courts lack independence, opposition appeals against electoral irregularities or executive overreach may fail (Ginsburg & Huq, 2018), risking Closure of institutional redress mechanisms.
Co-optation and defection: Dominant parties may entice opposition leaders with patronage or positions, fragmenting party cohesion (Greene, 2007) and thus risks internal fragmentation and loss of credibility.
Repression and intimidation: Opposition activism may be curtailed through surveillance, arrests, or restrictions on assembly (Levitsky & Way, 2010), risking demobilisation of supporters.
Public perception of inevitability: Voters may internalise the dominance of the ruling party as inevitable, creating a bandwagon effect (Przeworski, 1991), risking strategic voting away from small parties.
Policy irrelevance: With limited legislative leverage, small parties’ risk being perceived as ineffective protest platforms rather than governing alternatives. Such a situation risks long-term erosion of political legitimacy but comparative experience suggests viable adaptive strategies can bail the small opposition out of the problem.
Ways forward for small parties: Small opposition parties confronting brute majorities face a constellation of structural dangers: institutional marginalisation, electoral manipulation, repression, and discursive erasure. Yet survival and eventual competitiveness remain possible through coalition building and pre-electoral alliances institutional litigation and rule-of-law advocacy, grassroots deepening, programmatic differentiation, digital communication strategies, internal institutionalisation, financial transparency and small-donor models avoiding big donor model, civic and civil society linkages, normative framing: defender of institutions like constitution, democracy etc and long-term cadre development which includes young leadership grooming and floating think tank.
The resilience of democracy ultimately depends not only on electoral outcomes but on the persistence of organised alternatives. Opposition parties, even when numerically weak, constitute the latent guardians of democratic uncertainty.
Last but not the least, without strong media ecology the small opposition, which theoretically should get extra mileage from media, watchdog like ACC, and strong Comptroller and Auditor General office, can’t survive.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author
The writer is a journalist and political analyst
