Contemplating political reforms

Steps 1 to 5: Our party system

(1) Ensure intra-party democracy. The major political parties must elect all of their leaders with a clear democratic method. Our main parties organise national conventions, but they are irregular, and used mostly to rubberstamp leaders pre-selected through both direct pressure and indirect "emotional" politics. Parties must hold fair elections on a regular basis.

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(2) Party leadership must rotate. North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il-Sung, long dead, nevertheless continues to hold the post of President, which has been bequeathed permanently to him. Our political culture hovers around similar cults of personality. Virtually all parties in Bangladesh are beholden to a few permanent leaders. If they are committed to democracy, parties must ensure that there is a limit on leadership term, perhaps three terms as a generous maximum. Otherwise, parties will perpetuate the same mistaken worldviews and habits.

(3) Party MP candidates must be elected by local constituencies. In most parties, MP candidates are nominated, not elected. This process limits challenges to party leadership and rewards loyalty over merit. Parties must allow the local constituencies to elect their MP candidates. Whether it is formalised like American primaries or not is up to each party, but for representative democracy to work, local leaders must be allowed to compete fairly and rise up. Nomination is not democracy.

(4) MP candidates must not run in multiple constituencies. Our top party leaders typically compete for three to five seats. This not only stifles local voice but presupposes that local candidates are not good enough, a condescending viewpoint given to us by Britain, where, not surprisingly, most legislation introduced by "commoners" need approval by Lords. Whether we do it formally by amending the election laws or informally on the basis of agreement, abolishing this rule will ensure greater local competition and more focus on part of each candidate on doing the best he/she can for the constituency.

(5) Voting across party lines must be allowed in parliament. This is the single biggest drawback to the Westminster-style parliamentary system we have established. Our MPs cannot vote against their party, which reduces the parliamentary process to that of a glorified debating club. The rule favours loyalty over merit and the interests of central leadership over that of local constituencies. In an effective democracy, MPs are elected by local constituencies to represent their interests in national affairs. When their genuine representation rights are stripped, they are forced to find alternative ways of expression. Allowing vote across party lines would make the parties more careful and serious about resolving both intra-party and national issues, as they would always be in fear of defection or "crossing the floor." Moreover, if voting across lines were allowed, we would have been used to democratic defection, and possibly avoided the type of autocratic violence that BNP orchestrated recently against renegade MP Mr. M. A. Mannan.

Steps 6 to 10: Political rewards and punishment

(6) Restrict ministries to 10 percent of legislature. The current BNP government set out in 2001 with a gargantuan 60-member cabinet. Facing stiff criticism, it was later reduced: 53 senior and junior ministers oversaw 38 ministries. How have our traditionally large governments fared? In a recent World Bank survey of governance in South Asia, we have ranked toward the bottom of all South Asian countries in both governmental effectiveness and regulatory quality, which are the main areas of responsibility of the cabinet. The only country we managed to outclass is war-ravaged Afghanistan. Add to that Transparency International's rating of us being the most corrupt country in the world, along with the rampant abuses of law, and what we have is a dismal failure of governance. Does our economy require a large cabinet? Hardly. Eastern Europe underwent massive economic changes in the 1990s, transitioning from socialism to capitalism. East European countries with a parliamentary system managed that transition with an average cabinet size of 16. Those with a presidential system had an average cabinet size of 18. Vladimir Putin directs the turbulent Russian economy and polity with a cabinet of 17 ministers.

Governmental effectiveness aside, our cabinet is large purely from a public funds perspective. In this vein, the Public Expenditure Review Commission (PERC) recommend last year that our number of ministries be cut down to 22. In our corrupt system of political rewards, however, downsizing cannot be done simply on the basis of goodwill. We should think about a legally enforced upper limit. Such limits have been effective in other countries. Thailand has a constitutional limit on the number of ministries.

Belize, where the legislature has merely 29 seats, is also thinking about a cap on cabinet size. In India, where the obesity in cabinet size especially in state governments has reached epidemic proportions, a vigorous debate is taking place on a proposal to limit the number of ministers to 10 percent of legislative strength. In Bangladesh, such a limit will still yield a cabinet of 30 to 33, which seems a good compromise between PERC's streamline view and our helpless dependence on a large, ubiquitous government.

(7) Subject the home minister nominee to parliamentary approval. In our political system, the party (or coalition) that forms the government is free to appoint whoever they choose as ministers, provided at least 90 percent of them are MPs. The appointees are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny. However, given how state resources (such as the police) are routinely used to harass the opposition, the Home Minister has special responsibility to act impartially, in the interest of the state rather than the party. Our record here is dismal: the home ministry has been given out usually to either a party zealot or an ex-military man, both of which has tended to intensify autocracy. By making this appointment subject to parliamentary approval, we might encounter some unpleasant debates and delays initially, but we will end up selecting a minister who is somewhat acceptable by the opposition. Trying to appoint a completely impartial home minister is a fool's errand, but just the hurdle of a parliamentary approval will ensure that the governing party thinks twice about its nomination.

(8) Abolish the positions of state minister and deputy minister. These positions are unnecessary, and used either to reward young party members that are intimate with top party leaders or, conversely, to punish rising members for whom a full cabinet position might be a threat to the party leadership. These methods are reminiscent of autocracy. If the party reforms noted above are implemented (intra-party democracy, leadership changes, etc.), such rewards will no longer be necessary, saving public funds and releasing at least some members of our over-burdened police from their daily motorcade escort duties. It will also allow a single minister to work closely with a single secretary, and we will have avoided some of the ugly internecine divisions between senior and junior ministers inhabiting the same ministry.

(9) Abolish the Anti-Corruption Bureau. This Bureau, established initially with good intentions, has become a joke. Operated straight out of the Prime Minister's office, the Bureau is one of the main weapons in the government's arsenal to harass opposition politicians. Its operations are like clockwork: whenever a new government comes to power, the Bureau magically drops existing cases against members of the government and pursues new cases or re-opens old ones against members of the opposition. Meanwhile, corruption continues. This Bureau is just a solid waste of public fund.

(10) Use the army with judicial oversight to remove arms. An attempt at the withdrawal of massive quantities of arms spread by our major parties cannot be successful as long as the parties themselves remain autocratic in nature. Once parties operate democratically, both internally and externally, their encouragement of violence will naturally diminish. It is at that point that we must undertake another nationwide arms recovery drive, in conjunction with an arms-for-money programme. The only organisation capable of orchestrating this drive is the army. Under a democracy, however, a magistrate or some other representative of the judiciary must accompany the local deployment of the army. Their goal will not be to guide army commanders, but simply to note possible violations of human rights.

It is obvious that these are fundamental and difficult changes. Some of them, like cross-party voting, have to entail constitutional amendments, like the ones that established a caretaker government. Some others, like an arms recovery drive, can be done within existing laws. Still others involve changing procedural rules within the major parties. Regardless of the means, we must begin to debate, absorb and agree to fundamental political reforms. They are badly needed, and the sooner, the better.

Jalal Alamgir, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA.