No Nonsense
Boycotting local government election
THE June 23 editorial of the Daily Star says: "New controversies appear to be coming to the fore as the country prepares for the long awaited general elections by the end of the year. The major political parties have raised questions about the polls schedule for four city corporations and nine municipalities. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has rejected the schedule while the Awami League has described the move by the Election Commission as conspiratorial and farcical." These objections are threatening to drag the country into the pyre of partisan flames.
Thomas 'Tip' O'Neill -- a consummate politician and a legendary longtime speaker of the US House of Representatives -- once said: "All politics is local." He was elucidating how the issues and concerns of citizens in towns and cities around the country influence the policies and actions of their lawmakers in Washington. He was telling his audience that the electoral races for public offices at the local level are where real democracy is rooted and at work.
The phrase "all politics is local" may sound like over-simplification to politicians in Bangladesh -- but is a truism often ignored by our ill-educated and over-ambitious politicians.
In all politics, local affairs must form the political articulation of a party. In advanced democracies, participation in local elected government (LEG) is a stepping-stone to federal and state politics.
For example, in the USA over the last 100 years or so, state governors -- not federal senators or congressmen -- were elected presidents nearly 95% of the time. Don't forget, Barrack Obama was a South Chicago community activist, then a state senator, prior to getting elected to the US Senate, and is now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
Participation in LEG allows one to formulate policies, and influence local issues and their executions. LEG is where politicians master the art of interacting with real people -- knowing their concerns and finding possible solutions through political participation.
Local elections are, and should be, about local affairs. Election issues at the local level should remain independent of national issues, although there could be overlapping or cross-over penetrations of national political issues.
In all advanced democracies, LEG delivers public services and plays a central role in the discharge of "good governance." With the realisation that LEG is responsive to the needs of the people, South Africa, in 1997, restructured its LEGs and made them the epicenter of developmental activities. This restructuring brought a discernible U-turn of postcolonial models of state-led development in South Africa, which Bangladesh must also emulate this time around.
As I wrote in another piece: How many of our politicians elected to the national assembly have any prior experience of working in LEG? Not too many -- probably none.
However, once elected to the parliament, their link with the political offices at the local level is maintained primarily for "carving a cut" from development and infrastructure related projects.
The objections of the two parties against the scheduling of elections in selected cities and municipalities may be summarised from what all of us already know:
- Constitutional provisions allow the CTG to hold only parliamentary election;
- Holding local government elections (LGE) in selected cities and municipalities is discriminatory, given that the entire county's local body polls are long past due;
- Holding LGE will undercut parliamentary election;
- BNP and AL think that the CTG may have an insidious blueprint for implanting an administrative or political power base around the country at the local level to perpetuate power.
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