Ousting goons

In the past, leaders of the two major political parties never tired of claiming that they were against patronisation of criminals in any form or shape. But the reality was that the parties deployed criminals to overpower each other, both in electoral and day-to-day politics. The vision of the leaders was so blurred that they never thought of the belligerent tactics recoiling on them.

That it has boomeranged is evident from the setback the parties have had to suffer in areas where men with tyrannical disrepute represented them, thereby eroding their credibility. The leaders have very rightly realised that godfathers are bound to be Frankensteins, though they might be effective in achieving short-term objectives like subduing a rival.

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Now, there is pressure within both the BNP and the Awami League to do away with the services of the goons. The BNP high command is reported to have issued a directive to the effect that gangsters must not be included in the committees of the party. Similarly, AL workers are putting pressure on party leaders to oust the criminals.

Such is the robust intra-party realisation and articulation of the need to de-criminalise politics. We welcome this. The parties are certainly on the right track now, though they seem to have reached a rather belated consensus on this core issue. They should also realise that professional criminals have never been loyal to any particular party; rather, they have exploited the fact that the party-in-power was ready to rely on their services when it needed to clinch an issue through means undemocratic or illegal.

After this meeting of minds, the two parties will now have to concentrate on the more difficult part of the job: exorcising the criminals. However, they have to succeed not only in protecting their own interests but also in serving people who suffer when politics is dominated by killers, looters and extortionists working under the tutelage of this or that political party.