Vibrant Parliament needed
Our country, known for chaotic governance and extremist politics, accepted 1/11 as some relief from the ills that plagued it in the previous five years. In fact, BNP-Jamaat alliances' five years had been one of the worst periods of corruption and misrule in the country. Politics became a way of making money.
The relentless campaign of many political parties and civil society against the tainted ministers, MPs and a section of business groups brought into focus the infiltration and the acceptance of criminal elements in public life. The situation today is such that one with little education but handful of money and muscles wins hands down in election after election.
Our past experiences suggest that existing provisions of law and norms of public morality have failed to keep dubious characters out of elected bodies. If the civil society, armed with full information on these deviants, cannot mount enough pressure to keep political parties from entertaining them and voters from electing them, legal safeguards ought to be stringent. But sensible citizens think that such legislations will hardly work, because there are instances that conviction by a lower court has been stayed by the higher court.
With conviction rates being so abysmally low and trials so long-winded, most criminals never end up serving a sentence -- and if they do, it's often much after the crime. In the meantime, there is nothing to stop them from sitting in the parliament or becoming a cabinet minister and lording over the very officers investigating their criminal activities.
The critical responsibility lies with the criminal justice system to speed up matters. In a bid to ensure cleaner politics after a traumatic experience, citizens have to come forward in making the right choice, if they have failed earlier. As a safeguard against the wrong people being elected to parliament, the EC might consider re-polling if the winner gets less than 50% of the votes cast.
There is unanimity that the only way of cleansing politics is to improve both the criminal justice and the electoral system. There is unanimity that you can't leave it to the politicians to come up with a code of conduct for themselves The civil society will have to work in tandem with the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, which must be sufficiently empowered, and the media, if our body politic is indeed to be cleaned up. Encouragingly, young people under the age of 40 with good education are now entering politics. They carry the promise of purpose, the earnestness of idealism, and the blueprint of fresh perspective.
Parties across the spectrum use their youthful appeal to win votes, but are now unwilling to cede any real responsibility to them. Neither are the young MPs as assertive in a group as some of their predecessors were. Only in recent time we have seen several young MPs making speeches on the floor of the parliament about the misrule, lack of governance, and corruption in the RHD and transport sector of the communications ministry.
Performance of the parliament members in the Bangladesh political context, is often related to patronage. And being young is not an advantage in our political culture where wisdom is synonymous with biological antiquity. We are almost Confucian in our veneration of the old, even if the old is in an advanced state of fossilization. There is no place for many young MPs in the ideological space of Bangladeshi politics. Having used their youthful appeal to woo the electorate, they are now largely neglected by the senior leadership. Seldom do they get any organisational positions or task to carry forward the national rejuvenation and development programmes.
Growing corruption is the worst problem facing the Al-led alliance government now. Of course, crimes have always existed in places high and low but the rot was not nearly so pervasive as it is now. What is most worrying is that a gigantic part of government developmental funds meant for developing social infrastructure, eradication of poverty and empowering the poor goes to a few influential individuals, making them richer and increasing the rich-poor divide. It has been observed that not only corporate houses in the country, but also multi-national companies play a very active role in facilitating underhand payments to civil servants, members of government and political parties. All these happen because of the parliament members failing to work as watchdogs in development activities.
Unhappily, there is no role model for probity in public life. Corruption can be checked only if the tone is set at the top. It is important to bring corrupt people to justice, no matter who he or she is, by giving exemplary punishment to those who have abused power and state funds. The role of the parliament members in this aspect has to be remarkable. Why should it be that a parliament member has to go to his own constituency with police escort, as reported in the Prothom Alo on August 22, or that an MP would earn the bizarre reputation of beating people -- including teachers -- or that an MP will have to face charges of murdering his rivals?
Compounding the crisis is the battered condition of the roads connecting the capital city and district towns. It seems, ministers, parliament members and high officials responsible for alleviating the distress of the people and put development efforts on a firm footing shied away from their responsibilities from the beginning of the crisis.
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