To make democracy work

But what has struck me most since I got here, and that I think Bangladesh could do well to learn from, is the Australians' commitment to democracy.

Let me say that Australia isn't paradise. It has its problems. Not the least of which is the shocking state of some of its indigenous communities. The last few days, the newspapers have been filled with horrific tales of the third world living conditions in Wadeye, an indigenous community on the north-west coast.

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It is clear that this is one problem that Australians have not got a handle on.

But, be that as it may, when it comes to democracy and democratic institutions, we could do a lot worse than to take a page out of their book.

Most people may not know that Australia has always been at the forefront of democratic reform, and that it was Australia that first introduced secret ballots and universal suffrage.

Today there is compulsory voting, and the Aussies take their democratic responsibilities very seriously.

So do the Bangladeshi people, for that matter. The difference is that the system they have in place facilitates this, whereas in Bangladesh the entire system seems designed to frustrate the democratic process.

Voters in Bangladesh have respect for democracy, but it seems to me that the politicians don't share this commitment. When we compare the democratic structures, institutions, and practices in the two countries, there are striking differences.

The key difference is an appreciation for the need for neutrality and non-partisanship to make the process function. Professionalism, continuity, and neutrality were the watchwords of the Australian civil servants I have met on my trip, and it seems clear to me that if we want democracy to function in Bangladesh then we need to re-establish this principle.

The entire Bangladeshi civil and judicial services need to be cleaned up from top to bottom. In my mind this is perhaps the most important and far-reaching reform that we could institute.

Clean candidates are all very well, but if we assume that we are going to continue, for one reason or another, to elect questionable representatives (a pretty safe assumption), then perhaps what is needed is for the system to be tweaked so that the damage wrought by lousy parliamentarians and ministers can be kept to a minimum.

This can be accomplished if the civil service is depoliticised. If we had a truly professional and non-partisan administration, it wouldn't matter so much how poor their ministerial bosses were. A non-partisan bureaucracy would be able to curb the worst excesses.

Perhaps we need a movement for clean civil servants. It might be a lot more workable and effective than a movement to clean up politics.

Of course, to accomplish this, we need to put in place reforms that will permit our civil servants to function professionally without fear of reprisal. To this end, we need a freedom of information act that permits us to find out the processes by which decisions are made and policies are implemented.

We need full and timely accounting of all expenditures and the ability to question civil servants as to the basis for actions taken. Most of all, we need to be able to shield honest civil servants when they are following the established procedures. Many civil servants are corrupted only because they have no protection, and playing ball with the corrupt politicians is the only option unless they want to end their careers issuing licence plates in Patuakhali.

I like the idea of these kinds of fixes, since it seems to me that the only way forward is to take into account the dysfunctions within the Bangladeshi body politic, and attempt to fashion a system that minimises the negative consequences.

Such an approach would start with civil service reform.

More important even than the civil service as a whole is the election commission and the caretaker government. In this sense, the opposition has the right idea. Reforming these institutions and ensuring their neutrality is absolutely the sine qua non for the continued functioning of democracy in Bangladesh.

But more important even than this is a non-partisan corps of civil servants devoted to the functioning of parliament to help ensure continuity and a reservoir of institutional knowledge.

In Australia there is a whole corpus of civil servants, the parliamentary service, that is dedicated to the functioning of parliament, and the equivalent of the PMO is determinedly neutral and non-partisan.

The time has come for us to take a long look at our entire system of governance and put in place the institutional checks and balances that, taking into account the frailties of our elected representatives, are designed to make the system work.

Of course, all the institutional changes in the world won't help unless we have the commitment to change. Ultimately, we need to develop a true respect for democracy. Until and unless we do, democracy will never truly flourish in Bangladesh.

Unless the reform is within ourselves, all the reforms in the world will not fundamentally change things for the better. But failing that, putting in place reforms that minimise the damage the politicians can do might not be a bad start.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.