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:
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.
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.
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.
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