Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 1106 Wed. July 11, 2007  
   
Letters to Editor


Electoral rules


The Election Commission should be the most powerful independent institution to control democratic culture of political parties. "Towards free election" by Mr. Badiul Alam Majumdar published in The Daily Star's Forum, July, 2007 issue is a laudable initiative discussing the path to free election. I am adding some more points.

1. The two major political parties have never tried to create an internal environment to facilitate emergence of future leaders. This has been avoided to establish family rule. I feel there should be definitive steps to take in this regard by the political parties striving for registration with the EC.

2. A new political party may take years to gain public support and thus may not gain 3% of the votes in the coming election. The suggested cancellation of registration if they get less than 3% vote in the 9th parliamentary election needs further thought. Imposition of too many conditions may discourage potential social leaders to be involved in politics.

3. As in political organisations, NGO leaders find scope to come closer to people at the grassroots level. NGOs are institutions where scope of dedicated pro-people leaders can be developed. It is true that many NGOs, like political parties, are directly run by families. But there are the transparent NGOs too, local and foreign, and are run in a transparent manner, empowering people to take charge of their own destiny, making them self-reliant and creating new leaders. I consider imposing any bar to be a disadvantage to the dedicated NGO leaders willing to join politics.

While the rule of law is supposed to prevent criminals' involvement in politics, it is important to design electoral rules in such a way that true leaders don't get de-motivated.