A million dollar question, the PM can only answer

The question on everyone's mind is, how does the prime minister work? This crops up as a natural reaction to seeing her commit blunders, one after another, and getting entangled in her own devices. Are these of her own making or is she being led up the garden path by vested quarters or the government comforting itself by avoiding due diligence?
Whatever maybe the truth, the people are suffering as their real concerns get overlooked in the race against government's frittering away of its energy and time on virtual non-issues.
Just think of it, 150-200 vehicles are added to the already impassable traffic everyday and over 1,000 persons from villages are rushing to Dhaka city on daily basis. Three point four million live in slums and 28% of Dhaka's poor have no sanitation. Dhaka's population is projected to be 17.91 million in 2015. Just conjure up the dysfunction of the heart of Bangladesh i.e. Dhaka. Where are the peripheral growth epicentres to take the burden off the capital city?
On the one hand, the prime minister wants to make an international mark, on the other, she is doing everything possible to signal domestic mismanagement abroad. But she needn't have done so with her political mandate. Controversies still well up over Padma Bridge financing and going after Professor Yunus, Grameen Bank, its "associated" institutions, not excluding his social business enterprise.
The prime minister once humorously quipped she had defused two bombs by making Obaidul Quader and Suranjit Sengupta ministers. But she is oblivious to some other time bombs ticking anyway -- in a broader terrain.
The world she wants to leave her footprints on, however, does not take kindly to her ego-driven impulses; this seems obvious from the comments from the West on the government's move to change the unique and time-tested contents and character of the original Grameen Bank. If the US gets a cold, Western Europe sneezes, leave aside the bewildered look of countries embracing the Grameen Bank model, let alone astronaut Ron Garan's comment in Dhaka that social business holds the answer for the planet!
Do we need compliments from abroad to appreciate the visionary, or for that matter, any other international icon amongst us? Hardly, because 50 of our own women activists have demanded that eight million subscribers of Grammen Bank be not disempowered by one fell stroke. Are we bent upon proving the Bengali adage gaáyer jogi vik pae na -- village yogi does not get alms?
Bangabandhu himself used to say, parashree katorota is a word to be found in Bengali lexicon only; the phrase translates into English as piteously burning at other's serene success. Why must Sheikh Hasina's advisers even betray a whiff of such an impression -- even unwittingly -- one wonders!
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has herself repeatedly said she has nothing left to ask for. Twice prime minister of the country and twice as the leader of the opposition with her own accomplishments (including introducing non-partisan caretaker system blessing the country continuity of three transparent elections of which she herself has been twice beneficiary), what more she could crave for?
Coming back to the fundamental question, how does she work, Awami League presidium, the party's policymaking body, occasionally sits, but only to rubber stamp the chief's wishes. There is hardly any regular consultative process at important levels of the party, far less a bottom-up registration of party views reaching the top. Cabinet's collective responsibility is not a working reality as giving seal of approval seems to be there is all to it. We would like to stand corrected on any of these conclusions by an authentic statement which would facilitate public education in the process.
She has practically no inner political circle, her inner circle of advisers is known to be technocrats or retired bureaucrats. She is walled up by a circle of loyalists and relatives. In our culture, the supreme political leader is used to hearing what pleases him or her, even the agencies set their sails to the wind direction. So, the leader grows deafness to murmurs in the extended party or the purr of the public pulse. Many tend to believe she acts on her own, rarely consulting even her political allies.
Periodically, a spokesman would reel off data about cabinet decisions taken and implemented, but impact analysis is sorely missed.
Meanwhile, Begum Khaleda Zia had admitted to blundering herself in 2006 by deciding to let President Iajuddin become the chief adviser to caretaker government. This she thought brought in the misery of 1/11. She now openly blames her policy advisers for failing to consider the option of making retired Chief Justice Aminuddin Ahmed the chief adviser when the immediate past CJ K. M. Hassan had set aside gracefully his claim in the face of opposition AL's rejection of him. Khaleda Zia now argues that spurning Aminuddin Ahmed on the alleged ground of being pro-Awami League couldn't stand to reason because retired Chief Justice Latifur Rahman, known to be loyal to Awami League conducted an election in which the BNP won. So, what if one has reputation of an inclination to a party, he could still be overseeing a fairly held election on the strength of an independently working Election Commission.
Khaleda Zia has admitted to a mistake of the past, so the nation could not get the benefit of it when it was needed; but Sheikh Hasina can do it in real-time if she sees the wisdom of not continuously ignoring the High Court verdict's observation part allowing for two general elections to be held under the caretaker system, if political parties agree.
In the latest development, BNP is contemplating to present a formula of interim government after Eid, something premised on choosing chief adviser from amongst retired chief justices instead of picking the immediately retired CJ. There is also the alternative hinted by the HC observations dovetailed to the invalidation of caretaker system which is that judiciary maybe kept out of the interim caretaker system with the CA chosen from a list of eminent citizens. These options can be moot points to discuss and build up on by the ruling party in order that the nation can proceed on to the election path with assurances of all-party participation, the key to a stable democratic order.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail:[email protected]