Elections: A facade for democratic aspirations

Our politicians outvote Bangladesh as people fail to resist them in mismanagement and misgovernment. Resistance is possible if we reject the assertion that routine elections are the singular and the most important criterion of democracy in Bangladesh. Donor community, political parties, their media supporters, business leaders on government crutch, economists with flawed projections from their ivory towers, and other institutions help establish the premise that election, and only election, is the foremost condition for democracy and development in a country as Bangladesh.

Barely, 50 percent of Bangladesh electorate, if the data is pure and not politicised, vote in elections. Those who contest, mostly apply political weight, violence, bloodshed, and many other foul means to win. To punish and resist such unacceptable methods a neutral police force to investigate untiringly, and independent courts to judge swiftly, are basics. Bangladesh has neither, and as such, numerous crimes and wrongs go scot-free or poorly investigated during elections, and continue thereafter to bully and disillusion the people in general.

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Most of our well known politicians face corruption charges but very few face courts or proper investigations. It is tragic that these politicians, heavily tainted with corruption allegations, promise democracy and a better future for the country under their leadership. Politicians take advantage of Bangladesh's present system that is too weak to pursue corruption charges against them. A caretaker government provides some neutrality, a national relief, but such impartial governance quickly disappears with an elected government in office because the politicians wilfully keep democratic fundamentals buried.

Furthermore, donor countries particularly the US and EU, in competition, hold unwanted leverage in Bangladesh politics. Both focus exclusively on elections, and promote a futile concept that democracy is 'safe', and 'protected' once the country routinely hold elections. Nothing can be far from truth. We have seen many elections since 1971 but not in any period have we experienced democracy.

The Bangladesh parliament in 1975, elected by the people, approved BKSAL, but that was not democratic. A parliamentary consent where an elected majority seizes natural rights is inexcusably illicit despite its stamp of approval. Today, the Awami League has perplexing idea of democracy because of its past. The famous 6-points of East Pakistan Awami League in 1966 demanded the legislature's sovereignty, economic parity, and one-man one-vote to elect rulers. It was more a demand for power than for democracy. There was no mention of rule of law, separation of judiciary, neutral police force, or executive authority devolved to its lowest tier -- the businesspersons, the community, or the family.

The mood created by the 6-points agitation was for a superior, powerful, and a just government. This thinking and belief in the institution of an all encompassing powerful government, elected by the people, climaxed into the formation of BKSAL. They have no liberal conception of democracy, or practice, other than an elected government that fully gains financial, economic, and political control over its citizens.

Furthermore, BNP's rise to power and their claim to multi-party democracy are without any credibility. Bangladesh has always known multi-party systems barring few months of one-party rule in 1975, or during the long military dictatorships. BNP too uses elections, parliaments, and referendums to legitimise its rule in the garb of democracy. Compulsorily, democracy must have few permanent features that no majority or parliament can change except at times of emergencies as natural disasters or war. The economic freedom, the political rights, personal security, property rights, freedom of speech, and the right to dissent are not for any parliament to gift or grab. None can say Bangladesh is democratic today although there is an elected sarker and will soon be another.

People have lost and sacrificed too much in their political struggles but achieved too little in comparison. For them it is bloodshed, properties burned, and plundered, but politicians instead of condemning such violence ask for more sacrifice in their goal for state power. One never hears politicians criticising, condemning, or punishing their supporters for causing damage to common person's property or life. The absolute poor and the captive middle class pay the price of unjustified political terror.

Today, refreshingly, there is a demand but utopian for honest candidates in the coming elections. Humans are only honest at birth. Thereafter, no humans are perfect but imperfect and subject to temptations, and wrong decisions even if well intended. Only the secular laws of the country that punish the wrong can deter the dishonest in public life. We cannot depend on honest people in politics but on sound laws with people having access to efficient and independent courts that uphold justice, truth, and honesty.

However, if one would increase the number of parliamentary seats from 330 to 660 or to as many numbers of upzillas, due to the doubling of population since 1970, politicians with fresh ideas and better standing could again be in the forefront. Reducing the size of a constituency would mean less involvement of money and more accountability to the constituent. Sheikh Hasina's election reform proposition to the Bangladesh parliament in February 2006, on behalf of the 14-party alliance, has nothing of this kind other than her demanding proposal for a fair election.

At country's critical times as these, we would like to hear, in depth, political party policies and debates on various issues facing the country, but the only party activity that we disappointedly see are politicians frequently meeting foreign ambassadors, announcing hartals, planning forcible seizure of the city, commanding workers, and addressing the mute public. Our politicians detest interaction with supporters unless a sycophant consequently, they have a closed mind with fixed ideas. They have cliques and gangs that reap most the benefits of power, and deem all critics as enemies or agents of some intelligence outfit bent on destroying their party and politics.

Patricia Butenis, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, speaks of election, as 'about choices' but the choices we have is not what she enjoys in the US. She can, with the importance she enjoys in Bangladesh, highlight the vital elements of democracy and raise issues as separation of power, media sovereignty, and rule of law that make democracies a 'choice' and a 'state' of personal freedom, and security for the people, irrespective of who wins the elections.

However, they, the foreigners, as the US state department officials, are out of touch with the democratic aspirations of the people of Bangladesh as their president is with events in Iraq, where 'Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans' to quote a story in Washington Post. America's neoconservatives and their partners have deepened the commitment to American empire. In their slaughter of Iraq, they would like unity of the global community, UN, and countries as Bangladesh to consolidate the international system under their enlightened hegemony.

It is imperative that Bangladesh look inwards to sort out its politics, its history, or its economy. There are people rich in knowledge and experience, aware of what constitutes a democracy, and they are the people the politicians should be chatting with to renew people's aspirations for a genuine democracy in Bangladesh, of which elections is a mere component but not the end.

Nizam Ahmad is Director, Liberal Bangla/UK.