Reforming the Political Parties

It is no secret that the junta is very adamant about removing Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia from the political scene. When the first attempt of not letting Sheikh Hasina return to Bangladesh and sending Khalda Zia to Saudi Arabia failed, the current course of piling up criminal cases against them appear to be succeeding especially with a supreme court setup that so far has sided with the junta regardless of legal merits of any case against any politician.

There is also widespread belief that removing these two leaders would help overcome lot of the limitations of the political parties, especially bring democracy to these parties. This could not be any further from the truth. Removing Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia will neither bring reform nor will it bring democracy inside the parties. It will only intensify inner conflict and power struggle which is already happening within BNP. Weaker political parties can never help democracy. Not to mention these second tier so called reform leaders are not only incompetent, they are way more corrupt by any measure.

To advance true democratic reform in the political parties the government can do the following:

• Election commission can impose a set of rules that every political party must adhere to including term limits for party head and/prime minister and how and when local level party elections should be held.
• Political parties that do not conform to these rules will not be eligible to run in the elections।
• Empower the election commission (by making them accountable to the court and the parliament and not an extension of the executive branch) to enforce these rules transparently.

To bring such reform only requires intention and a fraction of time and energy (not to mention money) the government is spending trying to breakup the political parties and remove Sheik Hasina and Khaled Zia.

Bringing such reform is objective, fair and no one will be able to accuse the government of trying to breakup BNP and Awami League while giving Jamat a free pass.

The governments' current policies of reforming political parties will not work and they are ill conceived and a smoke screen to destroy or weaken the political parties and form a third party of the opportunists (as done by Zia and Ershad in the past).

The government still has an opportunity to bring about right reforms. The question is: will the powerful take the right road or take us in the direction of misery and destruction like the military junta in the past.

The FAT Hope for Bangladesh...

Gen. Moin U Ahmed was the obedient dog of Tareq Rahman and Khaleda Zia and now he has turned against them. He is going to be in power for a long time and anyone that is a threat to him is going to be "taken care of".

This government has no urgency of making changes to the institutions that can create a transparent and accountable government. Instead of creating an independent judiciary, transparent and independent election commission, instead of giving rights to the people, it is consolidating power to the army and it’s public facade (care taker government). None can challenge this government. This government has more unaccounted power than any government in the history of Bangladesh.

In the core of all this is General Moin U Ahmed, the mighty and powerful. While he has banned political activities in Bangladesh, he is often in the headlines making political statements. You only see some sings of the overwhelming power that Gen Ahmed has and it is only matter of time that he is going want formal recognition of his power. So if there is an election in two years, it will be to give that recognition to Gen. Ahmed.

The Army itself is no less corrupt than rest of Bangladesh. Transparency International has repeatedly ranked Military Supply as one of the top most corrupt organization within Bangladesh. So far the charges that have been brought against the corrupt politicians are very minor and some of them are laughable like not paying taxes for few bottles of wine.

You have very likely watched Satayjit Roy's movie Hirok Rajar Deshe. The people who did not support the Hirok Raja were sent to the "Jantar Mantar" ghar and when they came out they would chant “Hiroker Raja Vagaban”. Dhaka central jail is that jantar mantar ghar. All these politicians will come out just in time for 2008/9 election converted and finally "seeing the light of Moin U Ahmed".

The army intervension (coup) on January 11, 2007 has probably saved Bangladesh from a civil war like Somalia but this was another rare opportunity for us to turn in the right direction, but unfortunately this is turning into another episode of history repeating itself. Zia/Ershad all over again :(

It is only a matter of time the FAT hopes of the people of Bangladesh turns into disappointment...

Even then,

Shuvo Naba Barsho!!!

Election Reform in Bangladesh

There have been much discussion about election reform in Bangladesh and the newly appointed election commission is proposing changes to keep out corrupt politicians and to create a level playing field. Some of the proposed changes are banning retired government officials from joining politics within three years of retirement, someone must be a member of a political party for at least three years before they are allowed to run for office, and reducing the number of seats anyone can run from to three seats (currently it is five). The most recent addition is banning use of pictures of "national leaders" in campaign posters.

Assuming all of this has been done with the good intention, I am afraid it will do nothing to address the real problems of our election system and many only create a smoke screen of reform. Reducing the maximum number of seats anyone be allowed to run in MP election to 3, in practice, will have no effect. There are only few people that do run from more than one seat and this change will not change anything on the ground. The parliament member is supposed to represent the constituency that she or he runs from. Therefore, if we are changing the law and the constitution, should we not ensure that the candidate that is representing the constituency should at least be a residence of that constituency and be a voter of that constituency. If the law require some one to be a voter and resident of the constituency that will automatically prevent anyone from running from more than one seat. Moreover, current constitution does not even allow a MP to vote his her conscious or the way that represents his/her constituency desires him to. This is truly a mockery of democracy. This black law that only ensures political dictatorship must be outlawed. This will empower the MPs to do the right thing and not blindly follow the commands of their leaders and can not be blackmailed.

Laws such as not allowing retired government officials to join politics for a time period after their retirement and mandating someone to be a member of a political party for 3 years are clear violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens. Moreover, the crooks and dishonest will find their way in politics and only the good would be prevented. What could be effective is to mandate elections in each constituency among party members and supports to elect the nominee of that party from that constituency (like the primaries in the United States). This will also significantly reduce absolute and dictatorial power of the party leaders.

I can understand the good intention of the current election commission of not allowing portrait of "national" leaders on election campaign posters, especially given our history of all the ugly politics with the picture of some of our past leaders. But this is a clear violation of freedom of speech and complication will arise with the definition of national leader and who will decide who the nation leaders are? This is a subjective matter and though the intention is to prevent controversy, it will create more controversy.

If the true intention of the election commission and the current government is to hold fair elections just not for once but for every time in the future, it must reform the commission itself to be independent, transparent, and accountable. The emergency government may have some good and fair fellows to the election commission to run the next election, what these government can do is create an institution is honest and good by ensuring that the election commission is transparent, accountable, and one person or position does not have the absolute power to do whatever they want without regards to the law. We must create democratic institutions and just not count on good, honest, and fair citizens be appointed to these powerful positions.