Sense & Insensibility
Ramblings on 'Road to Election'
MANY of you will remember those Hollywood movies titled Road to Bali, Road to Morocco, Road to Rio and Road to Hong Kong, featuring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Those were great comedies from the fifties, which we remember even today. But we shall not delve into the details of those movies today. We have even better things to talk about, for example, our very own movie titled "Road to Election."
It is about a journey down a road that is full of potholes, craters, debris and polluted water. If you remember, that road was under the "control" of the Election Commission, which used to be run those days by men who took all the care to keep it un-navigable and unapproachable for the common people. They kept the road intentionally in a deplorable condition so that only Altoos and Faltoos could walk through the foul water and reach the seat of power. The then Chief Election Commissioner remained glued to his chair in the EC and worked at the behest of the Windy Castle. It took heavy-duty cranes to dislodge him and his gang of "jokerias."
The new lot of EC men, since inheriting the crazy place, tried their best to remove the debris and fill up some of the potholes with whatever materials they could find. The road needed lots of patch-work and the surface had to be leveled a number of times. Then a very politicised EC staff had to be almost bodily lifted and thrown out of the place. The sanitising effort has reduced the stench to a considerable degree, and the EC has gotten back some shape from where attempts could be made to organise a credible election.
To travel down the Road to Election one needed a map, a Road Map to be precise. So, the EC produced one, after putting all heads together. This deshi map is aimed at making the Road to Election straighter, well-lighted and smoother with no dark bends to facilitate return of the Altoos and Faltoos.
Frankly, the term Road Map is pretty new in this country. To the layman, it might as well mean a map of the Dhaka city that young boys sell at road intersections. In the past, however, we had heard of the much-trumpeted Middle-East "Roadmap to Peace." I am not sure how deep into the Middle-Eastern politics the western diplomats have reached following that roadmap, but the term has been picked up by all and sundry. Now we have our deshi version to solve some deshi problems.
The EC is now following the Road Map, and accordingly, the voter list preparation drive got the momentum, and we believe over 5 crore people have been included in the list already. The map does not only tell us when and how elections will be held towards the end of 2008, it has also laid down certain terms and conditions concerning what kind of people will be allowed to take part in the elections; how political parties will complete the formalities of registration; what are the criteria they will have to fulfill to qualify for registration; how voting centers would look like; who would man those centers; what kind of ballot boxes would be used this time around, and so on.
The major objective of the Road Map is to create the environment to hold a free, fair and credible election so that people can cast their votes and select their representatives who would form the next government. But before doing that, the EC is required to sit across the table with the representatives of major political parties and exchange opinions on nationally important issues.
On that count, we see little progress made as one of the major parties, namely BNP, stands divided, thereby creating an impasse that needs to be resolved first. Who to invite is the burning question of the day. EC has already created a faux pas by sending a letter to the secretary general of one of the two halves. The other half has the chairperson with them, therefore, they claim to be holding on to the scepter of the party. The EC is yet to come out of this knee-deep mud. But it has to find a way out. Don't forget election is knocking at the door.
The caretaker government is also pledge-bound to see that the elections are held in time as per the Road Map. It is only after the elections that this interim government would hand over the reins to the newly elected government. So, you see, the Road Map has turned out to be mighty important in our journey down the Road to Election. Like those swashbuckling adventurers and buccaneers of the romantic past, like Jason and his fellow Argonauts, we have a Road Map to take us to the land of the "golden fleece."
But it remains to be said that the EC might have given us the map, the main responsibility of clearing the road for the people to travel rests on us all -- politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats, diplomats, teachers, journalists, social activists, human rights activists, business people and so on. We owe this to the people on whose behalf we make policies. We have to keep the road clean and free of obstacles for the people of the republic. This is our collective responsibility. We must not fail.
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