Behind the deficits of electoral candidates
MANY would like to believe that Bangladesh polity is in a reform mode and there are hopes for positive change through the next election. However, disappointments have been expressed in high quarters about the unavailability of desired candidates in the local bodies election slated for next week. The disappointments are unfortunate but not totally unexpected. We have to admit that cronyism has been a hallmark of our political culture and mode of governance. No wonder, therefore, such cronyism has brought problems of delinquency and incompetence to the fore.
As against institutional development our ruling classes believed in a patron-client relationship. A whole network of patronage is built around jobs, admissions, urban plots, connections for electricity, telephone or gas and for dispensation of development funds. As such a belief has been created to the effect that political power is needed for acquiring wealth, fair or foul. In the process, the distinction between public property and private gain is totally blurred.
Coming to the issue of honest candidates for election we have to examine if our legal system has made life too easy for criminals and too difficult for law-abiding citizens. Some would say that the banality of evil was disturbingly manifest in our experience with democracy since at least 1991. The quality of our public life had reached the nadir. Politics became tattered and tainted with crime.
Honest candidates in electoral politics are rare because our politicians have been occupied in maintaining a system which is poisoned by collective bad faith and polluted by individual avarice. Very few have ventured to give the moral leadership which the people have yearned and are waiting for.
Elections and their corruptions and the subsequent injustices and the power and tyranny of wealth coupled with the inefficiency of administration made living distressingly unbearable. Our fragile institutions and economic stagnation further complicated the scenario. Consequently, ignorance, incompetence and dishonesty have not been disqualifications for high public office, either in the ministerial ranks or elsewhere.
There have been unsettling moves to take dispute resolution beyond the purview of the courts by empowering extra-governmental quarters. In the process we devalued judiciary and other important institutions of the State. People subscribing to the philosophy of the ruling party occupied exalted posts thereby acquiring the authority to decide the fate of unsuspecting millions.
Political activities, partly on account of historical factors, have assumed a dominant agitational character. Over the years, since after liberation and more particularly during the anti-autocracy movement in the eighties, leading to the fall of the military dictatorial regime in December 1990, political protests demanded crude physical courage from the field level activists of the political movement. As the dictatorial regime primarily depended on brute power and looked towards non-political quarters for its sustenance, it did not bother about the excessive use of force by the state apparatus. It had no qualms in utilizing dangerous goons to intimidate and if necessary liquidate political party workers and leaders. A section of the law enforcement personnel sadly turned out to be a willing partner in such patently illegal acts.
All in all, the political scenario became so desperate and menacing that only the very physically brave and intensely committed workers could dare to take to the streets to face the insensitive actions of a despotic government nearly bordering on megalomania.
It is a sad commentary on our political reality that howsoever eloquent we may be on the subject of freedom of speech, assembly and movement, we can be the worst of autocrats when under a clear democratic dispensation the government of the day would not allow assembly and protest gatherings of opposition political party to venture beyond the immediate confines of party office. The untenable scenario is that the government would not issue prohibitory orders restricting or banning assembly of persons, but would transmit verbal order to embarrassed law enforcement personnel to virtually quarantine the opposition elements in a limited space.
In an exasperating situation as above, there is a desperate and frantic bid to defy the authority and such defiance requires lot of raw physical courage in addition to hardship and endurance. Clearly, such functions can be effectively performed by those who have a greater gift of the brawn. These may sound funny but are field realities with which the political operatives of the opposition have grappled. Breaking the ban or being able to defy the quarantine is considered a very important achievement. The goons are no small players in this game. One has to be in the thick of the happenings to feel the pulse of the men, matter, and movements.
Concerned Bangladeshi citizens will sincerely hope and pray that indeed politics truly becomes difficult so that increasing number of brats and the non-entities do not occupy the centre-stage of our political horizon. Such concerned citizens and the well-meaning folks of our country earnestly desire that politics become the art of wise and patriotic people and is effectively salvaged from the clutches of the insensitive.
There is no denying that in spite of our adopting a lofty constitution, we do not have the ability to keep it. Equally true is the fact that while we are the proud inheritors of a rich and vibrant culture we do not have the wisdom to cherish it. The compounding tragedy is that our resilient people have to suffer and endure in patience without the perception of their innate potentials.
The arrogance and irresponsibility of the executive organ and the politicians can be tamed and chastened by an upright judiciary wherein we must have people who have the courage never to submit or yield. They should have the capability to effectively pronounce on all spheres of public life. On a more specific reference, our judiciary must firmly ensure the observance of our electoral laws so that the doubtful elements--both financially and criminal records wise--find it difficult to venture into public life.
In order to make politics difficult for the bad hats, can we demand that no political party should be recognized by the Election Commission unless the party is willing to maintain audited accounts of all its receipts and expenditure? This demand can be accommodated by the addition of a section to the existing law on Representation.
How about prescribing some minimum educational qualifications for those who seek election to parliament? One cannot fail to be struck by the grim irony of our situation where the one job for which one needs no training or qualification whatsoever is the job of legislating and governing a sizable democracy. To steer the lives and destinies of more than 140 million people our politicians are not required to have any education or equipment at all. It is clearly anomalous that we insist on high qualifications for those who administer or help in administering the law, but none for those who make it except that they are elected. Surely, the law-giver requires intellectual equipment, the capacity to take a balanced view of things and to act independently.
We need to have a merit-based administrative system to ensure pragmatic and balanced behaviour of the politicians. There is a belief that for politicians it would be easier to control officers with average merit rather than meritorious officers. Pliable officers with a low morale cannot put a brake on the unbridled ambitions of the arrogant half-wits masquerading as politicians. The services need to be protected from the high-handed actions of the political executives and their pernicious political links have to be sapped.
Assuming that Bangladesh is passing through the supposedly illiberal phase of democratization, it is presumed that political instability that goes with the period of transition has security implications for the country. The sources of such instability are negative politics, lawlessness, misgovernance, patronizing violence, keeping armed cadre in student/labour fronts, boycotting parliament amongst others. The reasonably free and fair election in the yesteryears still remains open to question in terms of both input and output. The questionable input for our election has been money including substantial amount of black money. Such money militates against the democratic spirit and impacts negatively on the quality of elected representatives.
Discerning observers would agree that in recent times, middle class professionals with credentials and with roots to the people have been squeezed out of the political market to yield place to rich businessmen, industrialists or individuals with questionable means of income. The security ramification of this phenomenon is that elected legislators having the backing of black money amassed through smuggling of narcotics or illegal arms can put the country at the mercy of few powerful dons, pulling strings from behind. In Bangladesh, fingers are already pointed at such elements. In the context of the violent trend in politics such accusations can not be summarily ruled out. Therefore, the election system, vitiated by money-and-politics nexus and a literally non-performing parliament are factors sufficient to make politics volatile and unstable with serious long-range ramifications.
Criminalized and vandalized politics is another indicator with alarming fall-out. Violence and politics have become almost synonymous. The emergence of political bully boys would not have been possible without patronization by political parties. Violence has had serious negative impact on the political culture of the country.
Our intolerant political conduct is reflective of an immature political culture and politics is viewed as a game in which winner takes all in a zero-sum format. Political parties are found to contest elections as if they are fighting wars. Political divide and rivalry often degenerate into personal enmity, thus infusing an unhealthy element of acrimony that leads to violence. The party in power is mostly intolerant, arrogant and even feudalistic in attitude. The opposition mostly opposes the government for the sake of opposition and are in politics as if with the undertaking to bring down the government. Such a scenario has been described as "crisis of governance".
We have to admit that our ethno-linguistic and religious homogeneity factor has not succeeded to bring the dynamics of socio-political relations within a manageable limit. Presently, our society is characterized by significant elite-mass gap. A small segment of society influences the decision making, allocation and distribution of resources. The failure of democratic experimentation in the initial years of independence led to a succession of military and quasi-military rule by a coalition of the higher echelon of the military and civil bureaucracy. Political leaders joined later to complete the "coalition of convenience". The first two groups remained dominant.
The elections of 1991, 1996 and 2001 may have restored the supremacy of political leadership but in the meantime immense damage has been caused in our political culture by the combined onslaught of corruption, criminalization and commercialization of politics of the country. The penetration of business interests in politics made possible through a policy of distribution of political patronage and bureaucratic support continued on a wider scale and the emerging business class not only attempted to control politics through donation to party coffer, they displayed a greater readiness to join politics themselves. We now have politicians and parliamentarians who have business interests. This commercialization of politics has become the safest and convenient vehicle of achievements.
The interface between the political feuds and intense power struggle, on the one hand, and violence of different intensities, on the other is provided by the underworld to which the political leaders of various statures are connected in a shady way. According to credible reports nearly 300 godfathers control criminal and terrorist activities across the country. The godfathers belonging to major political parties are actually mid and high level leaders of such parties.
Bangladesh polity has failed to forge national cohesion on fundamental values. Inadequate nation building and state building process is the cause. Lack of mutual trust and prevalence of hostile political attitude have resulted into weak political institutions and weak national capacity to resolve national issues. The process needs to be reversed.
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