Political reforms

Photo: STAR

I refer to the PCP article by Professor Nazrul Islam entitled "Vital Reforms Ignored" on 21 Nov. His recommendations to reduce the tenure of an elected government from 5 to 4, to induce tolerance by the losers for the winner, is indeed a pragmatic idea and a newly elected parliament must take this on board for consideration. Four years has been the tenure of the elected US President from the inception of its constitution about 2 centuries ago and it has proved its worth over this time for the unity of such a disparate nation, and for the development of a tolerant democracy.
His other observation and recommendation for a 'proportional representation' (PR) system of parliament also has enormous merit, however it needs an educated electorate to function properly. If public are only allowed to vote for parties and parties are allowed seats in parliament on the basis of percentage of votes, then obviously a complete list of candidates of all parties and their preferential order for allocation of seats needs to be studied by the voters prior to making up their minds. This may not be possible with most Bangladesh voters who lack literacy.
A PR system will allow all NRBs to vote easily for the party of their choice from abroad as it will not be complicated by constituency etc. Similarly, demarcation of constituency etc would also possibly be unnecessary except for locating of voting stations. Independent candidates may have to start a party of their own. Notwithstanding all these complications, this should certainly be a long time goal for Bangladesh.