Our political arena requires spring cleaning

I believe that time has similarly come for us to undertake such spring-cleaning within our domestic political arena. This is required, given the deterioration that has taken place over the last four years amongst those who are directly involved with politics. Most unfortunately, this administration has compounded the matter by doing little to discourage criminal nexus between politicians and partisan interests. Selfish desire for power and intemperate use of the state machinery has also cast a shadow on the process.

It is therefore no wonder that members of the civil society have raised voices and underlined the need for suitable and honest candidates for the forthcoming general elections due in January next year. I can understand their anxiety. They have pointed out an important and significant factor. They have touched a raw nerve among professional politicians and have consequently become quite controversial. Some have even suggested that the civil society in Bangladesh is indirectly trying to enter the political arena having become established business houses. Their neutrality and ability to pick and choose 'clean' candidates have also come under question.

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Civil society, in their defence, has also explained that their desire for a constructive national engagement has arisen out of their involvement with grassroots stakeholders who in more ways than one are affected by politics. Unfortunately, however, there are many factors for which no answers are available within their initiative. This has made their effort controversial.

Nevertheless, one thing is quite clear. There is need to bring about more transparency and accountability in our political arena in general and among those involved in politics in particular. This is particularly true with regard to financial backgrounds of our politicians.

Next door, in India, civil society through writ petitions and public interest litigations have been able to bring about a revolution, where political candidates have to reveal their wealth at the time of filing their candidacy. We have just seen how Mrs Sonia Gandhi, at the time of filing for her re-election, set forth in clarity, details of her financial background both in India and in Italy. This format helped to make her candidacy more transparent.

It would be ideal if everyone followed this procedure. It would however be naive to think that this will be fully possible. Even in western countries, information on all the wealth of an individual candidate is not always clearly available. On the other hand, election candidates to do no hesitate to clarify their personal wealth position or that of their family members in case a question arises on this issue. This has been seen in the case of Mr Kerry who ran as a Democratic Presidential candidate in the last US Presidential election.

As such, it was indeed heartening to see Sheikh Hasina, the Leader of the Opposition state in a public meeting on April 18 that she was prepared to give full account of her personal wealth as well as that of the MPs from her party. She has also added that those belonging to the current Alliance Government should undertake a similar approach.

This is indeed a helpful approach. Civil society in general and analysts for quite some time, have been demanding that all those who are involved in public life are obviously rich enough to be tax payers and should therefore submit to the tax authorities (like others) their annual wealth statements.

Normally, a parliamentary candidate is supposed to restrict his election expenditure to about Taka five lakh. In reality, it is always many times more. Such a system of accountability, as suggested by Sheikh Hasina, would be useful in identifying the current assets of those desiring to be MPs. It would also act as a benchmark, over the next five years while the persons in question is an elected MP. This would enable civil society and other watchdogs to assess if the MP is making money illegally while in office.

The tax authorities could also play an important role in this regard. Every single person wanting to be a candidate in the forthcoming parliamentary election should be asked to declare his personal wealth and assets, not only to the income tax department but also to the Election Commission. This could then be pasted in a web page to be maintained by the Election Commission. This should also include details about his educational background, whether he has ever been a declared loan defaulter or whether he has ever been sentenced for a criminal office.

The scope and contents of this web page could be altered after the election. Personal wealth details of those candidates who have lost in the election would be deleted from the web page. Instead this web page, on constituency basis, would include personal wealth statement of the elected MP and that of his immediate family members. Subsequently, this could be updated every year. This would continue till the next round of parliamentary election. Such an arrangement would permit everyone to find out how an MP from his constituency had economically prospered during his tenure.

We could have easily determined about the honesty of our elected representatives had such a framework been available, or been in place today. Nevertheless, it is still not too late to start.

We need to understand that this country will continue to slide down the road of corruption as long as there is double-speak about how to fight this menace. We have an Anti Corruption Commission that is still not fully functional. We have also had the strange system of whitening illegal income that indirectly encourages corruption. This provision of the government permitted individuals to break the law and then pay only 7.5 percent as tax on illegal income (as compared to regular tax payers having to pay upto 25%). Fortunately, this policy has been discontinued.

We all know that a parallel economy, euphemistically called 'informal' economy, runs in Bangladesh as in many other parts of the world. It is the criminal nexus between this economy and politics that has transformed the character of our political arena. In this case, it has driven most of the good elements out of the political scene. Consequently, mastans play a significant role. Their association also creates certain unfortunate compulsions for the elected representatives during their tenure as Members of the Jatiyo Sangsad.

I know it will be very difficult. Nevertheless, an effort should be made by the civil society to identify on a constituency basis, persons, who may be regarded as honest and eligible candidates. They do not have too much time. For once, let them show that they are capable of not putting forth ideas but also concretising them. Such a list could be tabulated and published. The important political parties might profit from such an exercise. They might find that some of the persons being included are already active members of their party.

We are at an important juncture of our national life. We have a crucial seven months ahead. Let us not lose this opportunity of instilling accountability in our political arena.

Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador who can be reached at mzamir@dhaka.net