Good democracy and bad democracy

Democracies are mainly of two kinds: good and liberal democracy, and bad and illiberal democracy. According to non-Marxist liberal thinkers, of different forms of government there are no better alternatives to democracy. The salient features of good democracy are known to all. At present around 120 of the world's countries are democratic -- at least governments there are elected by people's votes. People of Bangladesh have had a long experience of military dictatorship. For the last 13 years they have been experiencing a kind of democracy that can not perhaps be ranked as good and liberal.

Because: In a bad democracy, the party in power does not care to honour its election commitments, and does whatever it likes for the benefit of the party-men and leaders. In a bad democracy, the leader of the House and the leader of the Opposition are not in talking terms. The sittings of the parliament rarely commence on time due to absence of quorum. MPs are busy otherwise; they do not like to go to the parliament often. But they draw pay and allowances without fail.

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In a bad democracy, the leaders have no control over their tongue and the terms like 'ultimatum,' 'deadline,' 'trump card,' 'mass arrest' dominate the politics. In April this year, the people of Bangladesh experienced the outcome of the 'first call' of the 'ultimatum' given by the Opposition to the government for resignation. The leader of the Opposition said that it was the first of a series of ultimatums. And we are sure that many such things will continue to happen in the days to come.

In a bad democracy, the police are hyper-active, and to flagrant violation of human rights, arrest and send passers-by to prisons for offences they have never committed. In such a system, students and youths are used as weapons of party politics.

In a bad democracy, the Opposition boycotts the parliament, and the boycotting lawmakers have the pleasure of joining parliament session for a few moments only to 'save' their membership before 'expiry of the absence limit'. Their allegation is that they are not allowed to say whatever they like.

'Any opposition can tell anything to the government, nobody should stop voicing their concern, but there are rules and procedures of the game', a visiting member of the EU delegation exhorted our law-makers, adding 'continuing violent politics is not solution to the problems in the country.'

In a bad democracy, MPs are provided with tax-free luxury cars, and their perks are enhanced by 100 to 600 percent at the expense of the national exchequer and despite existence of poverty among more than half of the population.

We can cite another classic example of a bad democracy: 771 MP's from first parliament to the current one owe Taka 8 crore 60 lakh 95 thousand and 774 to the BT&TB as telephone bills. The bill defaulters include a former president and two prime ministers of the 1980's. "Deputy speaker Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui and 159 sitting parliament members are on this list of defaulters while some defaulting members of the 7th parliament are now members of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's cabinet. The 159 defaulters in the present parliament include 30 law-makers from the main opposition party Awami League (AL), 10 from Jamaat-e-Islami and eight from Jatiya Party (JP-Ershad) while the rest are from the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Twenty of these 159 defaulters are chairmen of various parliamentary standing committees including a former chairman," [The Daily Star, 27 April 2004].

The basic constitutional obligations of the government are totally ignored in a bad democracy. Minorities and other vulnerable sections happen to be the worst victims as such a democracy turns into pure and simple tyranny of the majority. Religious fundamentalists and bigot political hoodlums get the upper hand.

In a bad democracy, Ahmadiyas are asked to shut down their places of worship. In a bad democratic governance, a self-styled vigilante Islamic group kills and tortures people in its 'punishment cell' in the name of anti-outlaw operation, even forces women to wear burkha and men to grow beard under direct police support. In a bad democracy, supporters of listed criminals erect arches at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taka on the stretches of roads leading to the venue of a meeting to be addressed by the prime minister. They do not hesitate to do it in violation of a prime ministerial prohibition.

In a bad democratic system, the main opposition parties in the name of their democratic rights go on rampage calling hartals. Their activists take to the street in support of their programme in the afternoon of the day before and damage and set fire to vehicles of the innocent public.

In a bad democracy, opponents are brutally attacked and killed. As on the other day an MP was gunned down in a public meeting, and immediately after the incident police and Home Ministry officials declared that it was culmination of bickering between the leaders and workers of the party concerned. In a bad democratic rule, people in general and businessmen in particular feel insecure. Such as, in the meanwhile, several businessmen have been abducted for ransom and some are still missing. Wealthy section especially the business people have been facing extortionists every day. The government is unable to prevent such occurrences.

In a nasty democracy, every institutions -- government and semi-government -- are politicised. The government party men seem to hold licence to commit crimes as they are virtually given immunity from prosecution. 'Democratically elected regimes, often ones that have been reelected or reaffirmed through referenda, are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and freedoms.' [Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, Vol 76, No 6 Nov-Dec, 1997]

It may sound paradoxical that all elected governments are not democratic. Samuel P Huntington rightly says, 'Governments produced by elections may be inefficient, corrupt, short-sighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good.'

Bangladesh has already earned the name of a bad democracy. 'Naturally there is a spectrum of illiberal democracy, ranging from modest offenders like Argentina to near-tyrannies like Kazakistan and Belaros, with countries like Romania and Bangladesh in between. Along much of the spectrum, elections are rarely free and fair as in the West today, but they do reflect the reality of popular participation in politics and support for those elected.' (bid)

Bengalis took control of their own destinies 32 years back. During the freedom movement people had hoped that the independence would mark the end of exploitation, repression and oppression they endured for 190 years of British domination and 24 years of Pakistani rule. But the reality turned out to be diametrically opposite. The socioeconomic conditions and even the composite cultural traditions have worsened since the independence. The short-sightedness of the leadership and the incompetence of the leaders have been responsible for this mismanagement. Sufferings of the people multiplied over the years.

Before independence our nationalist leaders had played excellent role, but they followed mainly political agenda and completely ignored moral, social and economic questions. Now many people believe that we were not ready for independence at the time we got it at a cost of a river of blood. Now we have a constitution of our own -- the national flag, the national anthem, diplomatic representatives in the capitals of different countries symbolising national independence and sovereignty. But because of gross mismanagement a question lurks in the minds of the conscious citizens of the country: Are we on a devastating journey to a hopeless future with no exit?

Syed Abul Maksud is a senior journalist, writer and researcher.