Going Deeper
Credibility vacuum
There can hardly be a greater misfortune for any government than that it loses credibility with the people it is supposed to govern and of the international community. Some of the corruption cases of the alliance government (2001-2006) that have come to light (details splashed over print and electronic media) testify as to how governmental machinery was subverted in order that the truth not be found.
Lack of trust in the government translates into lack of trust in the judicial and prosecutorial system. Repeated rape of justice, as seen in the past, sparked revolutions that changed the course of history on several occasions.
In Bangladesh, as well, we witnessed peoples' ire for lack of water, electricity, and other essentials. These movements had nothing to do with party politics and everything to do with survival. In any case, about forty per cent of the people living below the poverty line have to lead a standard of life that would be lower than that of pets in the developed countries.
Since the demands made by the people on the authorities are so minimal, it would be unwise to deny the sky-rocketing of essentials, forcing the middle class to lead a substandard quality of life and the poor to penury.
The assurances given by the people in authority about the elections to be held soon, enabling the people to elect their own representatives better conversant with the woes of the people than the bureaucrats living in Dhaka whose knowledge is more based on reports received from the periphery than first hand field experience, would be possible if the institutions supportive of electoral democracy are sustained and allowed to work independently, assisted by a vibrant civil society and a supervisory institution over the workings of the parliament and the executive.
But one may ask: if the people are regarded to be the final arbiter of their fate, then what would be the logic of a supervisory council (whatever be its name and composition)?
The answer to this question can be found in the kleptocracy practiced by the alliance government (2001-2006), the members of which were elected by the people, not to conduct public affairs for private gains, but to serve the people, and also the inclusion in the constitution of a caretaker government that quintessentially underlines distrust among the political parties and is there to prevent the party in power from influencing election results in its favour.
One can also cite the example of the electoral college constituted for the election of the president of the United States. The electoral college was designed by the framers of the US constitution as an indirect method of presidential selection. The framers lacked confidence in the ability of the common people to make such a decision. The framers believed that electors, who probably would be better educated than average citizens, would make independent judgments, choosing candidates who were the most qualified, not necessarily the most popular.
Once the political party system developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, electors became agents of their parties. Their votes reflected their partisan loyalties, not their own considered judgment. The situation now is such that the candidate who gets the most votes in the primaries gets all the electoral votes of the state in the convention that nominates the candidates for the presidential election.
The proportional representation system that is practiced in some countries is to ensure that the will of the people is truly represented. The Westminister first-past-the-post system that we have now can degenerate into tyranny of the majority in which a coalition of parties cobbled with 51% of the votes in parliament can form a government and effectively muzzle the will of a party that got plurality of the votes cast but failed to get absolute majority enabling it to form the government.
In countries like ours, equal political influence, specifically meaning the insulation of political influence from differential wealth and social rank, can only be a theoretical exercise. The reports one sees in print and electronic media in post-flood and post-Sidr of people reduced to beggary -- it simply cannot be expected of the same people to provide equal epistemic value of inputs in decision making process.
One is not advocating rule by the wealthy that can, perhaps, promote faster economic growth, with the promise of trickle-down effect, because such a policy if followed would bring about further inequity in the society further contributed by the sharp price rise of essentials due to the greed to reap abnormal profit by oligopolistic cartels.
The interim government that has come like a breath of fresh air in an asphyxiated environment should take leave not only with promises that all will be well in the future, but also leave concrete infrastructure for the future governors to improve, if necessary, but ensure that they do not stray from the path of serving the people.
This paradox of trust and distrust and consequent vacuum of credibility of the people about those we shall elect will remain till they can prove themselves as servants of the people.
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