Inducting honest men in Parliament is a far cry

Rousseau abhorred the concept of democracy knowing it to be a cult of incompetence. He advocated enlightened despotism. He said, "I would rather be ruled by one lion than hundred rats." However this is a debate of yore. Standing on the corridor of 21st century to rehearse those ideas is a monstrous folly.

Nobody can deny that election is a vital process to institutionalise democracy. In elections of our country the general tendency of a great bulk of electors is to vote the party symbol without considering the quality of the candidate nominated by the party. The game being so two or three major political parties are seen to overwhelmingly dominate the show. In reality the two chief political parties have led the government in tandem.

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Of late the question that is getting louder from the electors is what kinds of men are voted to the Parliament? Are they tested patriots? More importantly, are they honest enough to serve the people? And all these questions have come rebounded on the electors counter questioning that while exercising franchise have the electors anyway examined that patriotic and honest candidates are returned?

There was a time when honest, dedicated souls were involved in politics and nomination to an election was given by the political parties after duly sifting out the most appropriate ones of the lot. Businessmen, industrialists were not generally among the contenders. They knew that they were not that enlightened and competent to hanker for that office. They remained confined in supporting this party or that hoping at best that if the party they had supported sometimes helping its fund were returned their business interests were likely to be safeguarded, if possible, of course without sacrificing fair course. Electioneering was at that time largely modest and ethical.

But things began to deteriorate rapidly since the seventies. Morality in politics dropped steeply that made an opening for the business class to enter in large number into politics and reach out to the higher rungs of the party organisation. Money became a strong leverage in politics. With it came the power of muscle hand in hand. The shrewd businessmen began to appear as candidates themselves for the polls. They felt political powers could as well be theirs too. They calculated becoming legislators was a far more strong guarantee to protect and further their commercial ends.

In the process elections became a game of black money, hooliganism, intimidating voters, cramming ballot box with fake votes, snatching ballot box, bulldozing vote counting and even fabricating election results by media coup etc.

And winning election in legislative assembly means like wresting a licence for plundering public and private money, liquidating the dissenters, flouting the laws of the land at whims etc. with absolute immunity. It was just next to getting Aladdin's magic lamp. That is why political parties move heaven and earth, fair or foul, to snatch state power.

Amusingly watchdogs of the constitution stand silent and submissive. There is an Election Commission to conduct elections fairly and constitutionally. But it proves helpless to obstruct those infringements because in fact it is neither independent, nor has full control over the staff it gets in its office nor is empowered to meet its required expenditures without the grace of the government. Even it cannot move a single force without government help to ensure security of a person or place. It lacks some most fundamental requirements to stand bold. As for example, the political parties do not have any compulsion to get registered with it, the ceiling of election expenditures fixed for candidate is crossed manifold openly, routinely, defiantly for which violation it has dismally failed to take any action so far owing to cumbrous, ineffectual legal modes. It cannot dispose of election disputes in an expeditious way, cannot make the candidates produce statements of assets and liabilities, declare if they have any criminal records and specify their being loan defaulters or not etc, to make these documents publicly displayed to help the voters to choose out right persons for the office.

What has become open to all is that now-a-days election has become a kind of investment returnable with manifold profits. This has slimmed the chance of honest, dedicated candidates to get party tickets in an election. Regrettably, the political leadership feels no qualms to sell out a large number of party tickets to robust bidders on this plea or that.

Time has come for the electors to think how to get off from the burden of electing dishonest, corrupt persons in the Parliament. The question of electing honest persons in the Assembly is all the more important because it is they who can deliver good to the people and country. Mahathir Mohamad, erstwhile Prime Minister and builder of modern Malaysia has said that for development of a country (like ours) honest persons with sincerity of purpose though lacking in specialised education are most needed. The political parties will routinely nominate dishonest criminalised, moneyed men and the voters will keep on voting them elected to fleece this poor country of the last remnant of its resources is a philosophy that cannot hold good for good. Time is high for the electors to tear apart this evil.

Hence a slogan needs to be voiced among the electors to vote for persons of integrity. For airing this new slogan the motivational and campaigning works may be done by bodies like NGOs, social, political, economic organisations, the civil society etc. The electors will obviously play it by ear from Teknaf to Tetulia.

Our vast number of voters may not be academically educated. But they cannot be blamed on lacking in practical wisdom. They cannot be charged with faltering to choose out the right political parties to vote in the national polls. This is proved by solid facts. To mention it, in 1991 polls the electors lifted the BNP to power to the bewilderment of many political pundits. BNP was then not that organised and AL prided itself on sweeping the polls ahead. How could this apparent miracle happen? The answer is that the voters, particularly the aged ones, had in their mind the rule of the AL government following 1971. So they (electors) tried with the BNP pushing it to form the government. Again in the next election of 1996 the voters, distraught with BNP government, swung back to the AL also considering that the party chief had apologised for the past mistakes and appealed to the voters to give it a chance to come to power after a long eclipse of 21 years. Again when national election was held in 2001 the electors set their face against the AL primarily for the top leadership allegedly giving indulgence to the godfathers of terrorists in Feni, Narayanganj etc.

Imagine how many ears can catch the new battle cry -- vote for men of integrity. Firstly, we have a considerable chunk of floating voters who may be convinced of the cause. In fact they are the first targets. Secondly, there are traditional voters giving votes to party symbols age by age. They are die hard supporters of particular parties difficult to be swayed otherwise. Still if the core of their heart is silently knocked deep resentments at the corrupt and criminal activities of their party stalwarts come pouring down. They may be tuned to the new slogan promising an end to corrupt, criminalised governance.

Painfully we find how better the caretaker government, compared to a regular government, has performed. The caretaker government is a non-political, neutral government composed of men of different occupations of outstanding merit. It governs the country for six months, one-tenth period of a full-term government. Has a caretaker government failed to govern the country? The answer is an emphatic NO. Rather during its tenure the country breathes a fresh air, law and order improves a lot, the terrorists take to heels, the police and administration get free from the menace of telephonic political diktat. One may argue that a caretaker government is not put to a test to prove its capability of performing long term administration doing useful reforms. This can be dismissed remembering that it was the last caretaker government that finalised the bill for enactment of long-awaited 'separation of the Judiciary from the Executive' and just when final assent to it was to be given the Prime Minister designate interfered, as reported, urging to leave out the matter for the incoming regular government led by the BNP to perform this responsibility by way of fulfilling an election pledge. Meanwhile long three years of the coalition government have passed out but nothing in this matter has been done despite repeated blasting directives from the Supreme Court.

It does not appear plausible that the top leadership of the chief two political parties would give due weight to the sentiments of the electors. Probably it is not that caring and farsighted as well. Moreover it may have got handicapped by obligations and commitments, direct or tacit, to the co-activists, kith and kin, business tycoons thickly encircling it. So the prospect of choosing honest, patriotic incumbents in the crucial national election coming next in less than two years is nothing but sombre.

Ar Shamsul Islam is Retd Principal Govt Mahila College, Pabna.