Beyond the frills, let's have real reforms

When you observe the malaise of dynastic politics burrowing its way not only through the political parties but into the edifice of government as well, you are rather roughly, somewhat rudely, reminded of the myriad gaps, which yet characterize the system of pluralistic politics in this land. You can be sure that these are gaps that have been growing wider and getting deeper. In consequence we, as citizens, have been left feeling a tad uneasy about the path democracy may or will take in Bangladesh unless, of course, some people seriously come forth with ideas of reforms to be placed on the political arena.

Observe, if you will, the terrible burden that has nearly always left our national politics paralysed through the preponderance of Article 70 of the constitution. If you thought that your lawmaker, the one you elected in the last round of voting, would march bravely on in defense of your interests to a point where he could even end up taking a position at variance with that of his own party, you were wrong. This very constitutional provision we speak of takes away with one hand what the constitution in broad outline has given to every citizen with the other. More precisely, and worryingly, it leaves local and national interests subservient to the authoritarian will of the political parties represented in parliament. It is the party that matters; the individual lawmaker is a being of little substance.

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It is here that you need reforms immediately, which, of course, can come through a conscious, well coordinated program for repealing Article 70, thereby allowing Members of Parliament to express their will freely in the House without any fear or apprehension that such exercise of freedom will result in the loss of their membership in the legislature. If Article 70 is debilitating, and it clearly is, it has to go. Unless it does, all these professions of democracy that politician's mouth with increasing frequency these days cannot but end up being plain pretentious behavior.

Moving beyond Article 70, there is that other factor that has regularly stymied an uninterrupted flow of democratic waters in the country. The first past the post system, where elections to the various local and national bodies are concerned, has outlived its usefulness, to say nothing of losing its appeal. And naturally too, for the simple and yet loaded reason that it often militates against an expression of the popular will itself. Any candidate or party getting elected by less than fifty percent of the votes, which may be the highest compared to the support garnered by his rivals, is nevertheless a poor way of demonstrating the power of democracy. Even where a candidate secures forty nine percent of the votes at the elections the truth remains unassailable -- that he has not acquired majority support in popular terms and so cannot claim to represent his constituency.

There is a major contradiction that is in need of removal or neutralisation. And that step is again a universally accepted, certainly more credible one: where no candidate is able to obtain the electoral support of at least fifty percent of the citizens, it is in the fitness of things for a second round of voting to be arranged between the top two vote-getters.

The issue here is a good deal more ethical than political. An elected public figure will be doing himself and his constituency a load of disservice if he climbs to that position without being the chosen nominee of a majority of the people. Extend the idea to include the manner in which a political party can take its place in the Jatiyo Sangsad.

The elections of October 2001 were proof of the contradictions inherent in the political system, as it happens to operate at present. The Awami League, despite having obtained popular vote to the tune of forty one percent, which was more than what the Bangladesh Nationalist Party could come by, watched this support get whittled down by the first past the post system.

It was a bizarre condition at play here. While the highest number of voters countrywide chose the Awami League as the party they wished to see in office, the quirkiness of the system saw the party or alliance with less public support form a government for the country.

These and other ludicrous, even mind-boggling manifestations of politics ought to be rolled back in line with the demands of modern democracy. That looks like a job that can easily be done, through launching of reforms of the parliamentary representation system. The example here can be derived directly from the German political framework. To be represented in the legislature let there be a threshold below which a party cannot lay claim to seats in the Jatiyo Sangsad.

The Germans have five percent of the votes obtained as the benchmark for parliamentary representation. Either that figure or something similar to it can be mulled over here in Bangladesh in relation to the composition of a newly elected legislative body.

And once that is decided upon politics can move on to the next phase, which is an apportioning of seats in parliament to the political parties on the basis of the popular vote earned nationwide by them. We are talking proportional representation here. That way the chances of pluralism developing more flesh on its bones are increased. Democracy takes centre stage in a fairly acceptable, if not perfect, way.

But all of these reforms, or suggestions pertaining to them, rest, in the final analysis, on the restructuring that the nation's political parties are willing to inaugurate within themselves. A condition where the president of the Awami League, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the chairman of the Jatiyo Party remain omnipotent, enabling them to skirt around internal party elections and so exercise the power to impose decisions on their followers, is detrimental to the nation's health. Do not expect a democratic order in the country to arise out of the mist prior to an end of the insularity that has come into the workings of its political parties.

Reforms, did you say? A beginning must be made somewhere, obviously.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Executive Editor, Dhaka Courier.