Strategically Speaking
Time for a rethink
It is time to rethink -- to put our heads together to consider the future state of the many things that affect our lives as citizens, as political creatures, and as human beings. This is compelled by the developments since Oct 2006 -- the end of the 4-party alliance rule, but most of all because of the situation brought about by the resignation of four members of the caretaker government (CTG).
This is not the first time we have had CTG advisors put in their papers, but the circumstances of the latest resignation vary greatly from when Mr. Iajuddin's cabinet was denuded by the departure of four of his colleagues. Then, it was a protest against a highly partisan chief advisor out to implement an electoral blueprint. We are not aware of the exact reasons for the premature departure of the four advisors, but one can assume that these have certainly not come about due to the departing advisors' own volition.
In January last year, in these very columns, we had said that the government of Mr. Ahmed was "caught between determining what the minimum that his government should do to put things right for holding a free and fair election, and the obligation to hold the election within the shortest possible time. The former was a compulsion that stemmed from popular demands; the other was the constitutional constraint to return the reins of the government to the people's representatives. He can overlook neither."
While we are waiting eagerly for the next election, to be organised by a reorganised and revamped Election Commission (one would like to see it reformed as well), aided by a CTG that had to take over the reins of the government under very painful circumstances, we find the government embroiled in issues that are extraneous to its mandate, yet which it cannot but address because of the prolonged duration of its tenure.
It appears that the general election and an elected government may not be in place for almost another year. Although a roadmap and time line have been formulated by the Election Commission, with the performance record of the CTG, December 2008 doesn't appear near enough.
And that is exactly what we must rethink about -- whether we should have, in future, a system of non-elected governments running the affairs of the state for any length of time, even three months. It's time to revisit the issue of the caretaker system as a whole.
There is no argument that the second installment of CTG, and the changes in January 2007, were inevitable, and the change was welcome; the question is, having welcomed a unique arrangement that had neither been foreseen by the framers of the Constitution nor by those who devised the system of CTG, the absence of an elected government and of politics, and the political parties becoming near redundant as of now, the nation is now faced with an eerie situation that cannot bode well for us. A stopgap measure cannot be open-ended, as we had stated in this column very soon after the CTG of Mr. Fakhruddin Ahmed was formed.
And there are many that would like to see the government fail. And, surely, they must be taking delight in the many faux pas of the government and errors of judgment in some of its actions, for which it finds itself in the dock, in spite of the entreaty of one of the ex-advisors to not hold the CTG accountable for its actions. And this is exactly the reason why the idea of an unelected government -- albeit validated by the constitutional provisions -- running the affairs of the state for any length of time appears incongruous with the norms of democracy.
If 1/11 was inevitable, it was made so by a very unholy aspiration of the 4-party ruling alliance that power could not be allowed to pass on to their political opponents. The attitude was so hardened that, eventually, political opponents came to be considered enemies. The CTG arrangement all but collapsed -- laying us open to so many possibilities.
The current CTG was perhaps the best of all the possibilities. There could have been other options that would have been justified by the turn of events leading up to Jan 11, 2007, and the near systemic collapse at the national level.
1/11 saved the nation from a political disaster. Just imagine what would have happened had the January elections been allowed to go on. Notwithstanding the above, my position on the system of CTG needs to be restated, for whatever it is worth. In spite of the accolades the system has received internationally, and replicated in at least one of the South Asian countries, it remains an undemocratic arrangement.
I have said before, the CTG system is an arrangement that stands as a sad testimony to the immaturity of politics in our country and pettiness of our polity; it is a reflection of the inherent mutual mistrust of the political parties. It is disheartening to think that we have not come of age politically.
The natural question is that when the two previous CTGs had come and gone after holding successfully the parliamentary elections, which was their only task, have we not demanded and expected too much of an unelected government, whose only mandate should have been to give us a free and fair election, but which has taken too many issues in hand to be able to address all of them efficiently.
One of the reasons that militates against inordinately long existence of an unelected government, is the possibility of the government getting embroiled in issues that it may not be necessarily well-equipped to deal with, not because of an intellectual shortcomings but because such issues are best dealt with by the elected representatives of the people.
Moreover, an unelected government has no political stake, which creates a psychological state that makes it feel that it is not accountable to anybody. At least that was the impression one got from the sometimes offhand and most of the times tawdry remarks of a few of the advisors. This state of mind obstructs proactive actions on their part on issues of national importance.
Some would like to see the present government fail. And not all of them belong to the same camp. They have their own reasons for wanting to see Mr. Ahmed and his team fails to deliver on the commitment made to the people. Failure to provide a free and fair election with a cleansed political ambience cannot be an option for the government. In fact, holding a free and fair election is the only thing it must devote its energy to.
And it is for the politicians to ensure that they not only reform themselves but also reform their way of conducting their business as politicians in future, that would allow us to dispense with the system of CTG altogether and preclude the chances of extra-democratic forces intervening directly in the politics of the country.
The author is Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.
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