Sensing public mood accurately, if perhaps a little belatedly, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has come up with words of caution for her colleagues to deliver rather than still bask in the waning sunshine of electoral victory and taken-for-granted invincibility. One cannot but be heartened by her introspectively wise counsel that the AL government now needs to act to deliver over the remainder of its tenure. It has to leave something tangible on the ground to be judged by the people.
The AL government is close to stepping into its third year, so that according to Prime Minister, 'the honeymoon period' or the time for easy praise and self-congratulatory air is over. In the eye of many, however, the honeymoon period may well have been over a long time ago. And judging by some of the early trends in certain areas of governance like, for instance, mishandling of the BCL and Juba League, incompetence, abusive behaviour and favouritism of some ministers and MPs, tainted law enforcement insofar as extra judicial killings went, allowing little space to the opposition in parliament and outside, clipping the wings of local bodies, and above all, a general mode of denial on all these have got imprinted in the public mind. Hence, the job is cut out for the government to firmly roll back the negatives, take corrective actions where due, clear the deck and then steam ahead to deliver on the electoral promises for change.
The prime minister has very rightly said, "The government will have to be accountable to the people for every step in the coming years. People will judge the government very critically and will want output in every step". Nothing could be a more realistic assessment of what the government needs to do from here on. The PM has openly expressed her dissatisfaction over the poor performance of some ministries including their failure to review progress of development work on a monthly basis which she had ordered for them.
Let us not forget, the prime minister has never been short of issuing cautionary and exhortative words to the members of her cabinet, MPs and loyalists of the ruling party but what should make a difference now is the watershed that the AL government has clearly reached. Beyond this, the people will have no patience for nonperformance, even underperformance.
Good words by themselves are not enough; they may just be an expression of intent, a serious one too; yet, unless these are performed they will turn out to be empty rhetoric. To benefit from these words and make full use of them, the ruling party will have to change its mindset in not being dismissive of those who are critical of them; on the contrary, to accept good advice from wherever it comes. That will power the machinery of the government to yield positive results for the nation as well as for the ruling party.