Registration of political parties

The somewhat comical spectacle of 114 political parties, the vast majority of which very few members of the general public had ever heard of, being invited by the EC to discuss reforms to the voter list, has had the unintended effect of bringing the issue of the proliferation of such political parties to the fore-front.

Let us start by stating that there is nothing wrong per se in groups of like-minded individuals getting together to form a political party. Bangladeshis are by nature a fractious and political people, and it is only natural that these tendencies of ours would result in a vast outgrowth of political parties. The fact that many of these parties command the loyalty of no voters outside of the friends and family (if that) of the party leaders and founders, while amusing, is hardly an offence.

The proliferation of parties, however, does shine a spotlight, on one glaring problem in the Bangladeshi body politic. It remains a rich irony that while even the smallest of shops or businesses is required to be licensed and registered, that there exists no law requiring the registration of political parties and no statute regulating them. It can be argued that the very political parties that rule the country (now and in the past) have no real legal standing whatsoever to do so.

Unlike in all other spheres, there is no official criteria set forth for the formation of political parties. There are no regulations in place to govern their conduct and by-laws with respect to crucial matters such as funding, internal democracy, organisation, and structure. This is a shocking regulatory oversight, even more so when one considers that any political party has the potential to come to power as part of a coalition.

The reason for this is that registration and regulation has been uniformly opposed by the major political parties. We are at a loss to understand why this is. That political parties need to be brought under some kind of regulatory framework seems to us to be self evident. That such a measure would improve governance by subjecting the parties to some kind of discipline and creating some level of transparency and accountability with respect to their internal activities seems impossible to deny.

If the political parties really wish to be seen as serving the people's interests, and not their own, they would support a law requiring registration and regulation of political parties.