Lofty promises

WITH AL and BNP having announced their manifestos containing a big list of pledges. However, people are left wondering more why BNP that ruled the country in the immediate past failed so miserably to achieve some of the goals like meeting the food gap and energy crisis in their earlier tenure. Strangely, without admitting their lapses and mistakes, both parties are making commitments to redeem their pledges if they are voted to power again. But the mother of all advices for any party vying for power is : do not commit what can't be delivered. And as for BNP, already their load of unfulfilled promises is excessively heavy.
When the anxious citizens are waiting to see transfer of power to an elected government through a peaceful and credible election to be held in the next few days, BNP chairperson's discordant notes in different meetings on her election campaign in the south western part of the country about a conspiracy being hatched to foil the election astonish many. With Police, RAB and Armed Forces deployed around the country to plug all such loopholes, people cannot give credence to such doomsaying.
People are optimistic about the resurgence of democratic governance in the country. This has been evident from the impressive voter enthusiasm and the effort of the Election Commission through different electronic and print media aimed at educating the voters about the way they would exercise their franchise after receiving the ballot paper.
The BNP manifesto embraces all aspects of peoples' suffering and woes, but evidently there is lack of direction and action plan to tackle these issues and problems. The manifesto has made loud proclamations of eliminating corruption from the body politic of the society but tragically during immediate past alliance rule this country's corruption record was most abysmal as the TI scoreboard indicated. Shockingly, despite knowing the adverse reaction it would have on the voter's mind, the party has nominated persons with tainted past for the parliamentary seats. In none of her speeches since she started her election campaign, BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia did either admit or regret the lapses committed during the alliance rule.
The action plan of the present EC suggests it is possible to turn a corrupted system into an agency of self-purification. Bangladesh statecraft is susceptible to public opinion and EC used the public disgust and the newly framed RPO to tame the political class. After so much of public resentment, people wonder why any such resolve to rid the country of corruption menace is missing in the BNP manifesto? At this crucial hour BNP manifesto should have given priority to transparency in government,, fiscal discipline, disentanglement of the state from the areas that should be left to private initiative, the repeal of the archaic laws that encourage violations and an assault on the politician- criminal nexus.
The manifesto indicated that if the 4- party alliance were again voted to power they would complete the tender process of Bibiyana and Sirajganj power project within 100 days of their going to power. But people know that even the tender process of Sirajganj power project could not be completed during their five-year rule because of political consideration.
Hopefully both AL and BNP have made pledges to arrest price hike of essentials in their manifestos, however, with no mention of the specifics as to how it can be achieved. Undeniably true, food prices started shooting up during the alliance rule. Reports published in the newspapers in July 2006 indicated that intelligence agencies as per the instruction of the Commerce Minister at that time identified the vicious circles working behind the scenes in creating artificial crisis and consequent price spiral. The identity and number of such importers and hoarders were reported to the minister. Reports further indicated that these were reported to the PMO at that time but no green signal was obtained to bring the culprits to book. That brings to the fore the same governance issue that plagued the administration during the alliance rule.
In fact only the caprices and vile profit making motives of the business groups are not only to blame. For over a decade now agricultural production has been stagnant. Agriculture faces a crisis of cultivable land for food grains remaining static at 2 crore 21 lakh acres. Rapid urbanization, road construction and industrialization, too, are taking up sizable chunks of land meant for agriculture. More disconcerting, the profitability from this land has not increased either, as land holdings have become smaller, expenses on irrigation water, fertilizer and pesticides have become higher.
Farming is increasingly becoming an unviable activity. Compounding the crisis is the addition of 25 lakh new mouths every year. So the prime minister of the newly elected government has to move with unusual alacrity to stem the rot, if, according to both the major parties, we have to live as a self-reliant nation with dignity. The basic fact behind any crisis situation is shortage in production that has to be improved first. In fact, as capacities are created and supply situation improves, competition will drive inflationary pressure down and prices will even out.
It may also be mentioned in this connection that about 50 per cent of the vegetables and seasonal fruits gets wasted in the fields, launch ghats and bus terminals because of lack of proper storage and transportation facilities.
Foremost of all issues that seem to have received scant attention in the manifesto of both the parties is the attendance in the Parliament session. AL has made just a cursory mention about making the Parliament effective, while the BNP has made pledges aplenty about building up a healthy Parliament with deputy speaker nominated from the opposition party and both the speaker and the deputy speaker resigning from their parties. But going by the past experiences, people are skeptical about the implementation of these pledges because during the last five years of alliance rule, there was hardly any healthy debate on any national issue participated by the treasury and opposition benches. Parliamentary standing committees formed at that time could not even sit together on any vital issue starting from corruption allegation to development efforts.
Going by the parliamentarian's propensity or rather habit to skip House sessions, one would presume it was a task of scant significance, stripped of the gravity usually associated with running a country. For, the presence of an increasing number of members in Parliament seemed to be more a chance occurrence than a foresworn duty. On the issue of parliament boycott, sensible citizenry feel that it is criminal for the MPs to shirk their constitutional obligation towards people for any reason, inter-party conflict or pre-occupation with business, whatsoever. The people's representatives should value the enormous amount of public money spent on running Parliament other than the fact that MPs carry with them a pledge to speak about people's need in the parliament.

Md. Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.