Ground Realities
Fortifying democracy
THE new government that Sheikh Hasina will preside over as prime minister will need to hit the ground running. That will call for decisive action on the part of the prime minister and her colleagues in the government. And such action must be taken in those particular areas where public interest has been intense in these past couple of years.
The chief of the Awami League has promised to strengthen the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). That is a good beginning, but for the promise to acquire substance, the new government must swiftly and unequivocally go into the business of devising the measures that will truly transform the ACC into an independent body.
A bad casualty in these past few years, especially during the period of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party coalition government, has been a systematic undermining of public institutions. And when you have institutions that go wobbly, you cannot really expect democracy to work in its natural fashion.
A rebuilding of institutions, a revitalising of departments and ministries and other organisations is, therefore, called for. When you think of the ways in which the ACC has been working under Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, and when you put all that in juxtaposition with the Anti-Corruption Commission as it earlier operated, or stultified, under the authority of politically partisan men, you realise with a bit of happy surprise that the ACC under the former chief of staff of the army has done commendable work. It has revived our collective confidence in the ability of institutions and the law to help us turn back to the lost heights of morality.
We, the people, expect the new administration to be a true manifestation of cabinet government. And with that we believe that this government should, in its own interest as well as in the overall interest of the country, undertake the job of enhancing the powers of the ACC. Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury and his team have done a fine job despite the many odds stacked against them.
As an early sign of its seriousness of purpose, the new Awami League government should be taking the long-term view, through asking and telling this team to stay on. The political leadership and the ACC must get down to the business of framing the rules upon which the latter will operate absolutely independently of the government, to a point where no political influence will or can be brought to bear upon the working of the ACC.
In the coming weeks and months, the degree to which the ACC prosecutes those guilty of corruption in the past (and it matters little where or to which political party such elements belong), and the extent to which the government will resist the temptation of intervening in or interfering with the work of the anti-corruption watchdog, will indicate the route this country will take in its drive to cleanse itself of the sins that have long undercut its essential values.
The imperative for an institutionalisation of politics and governance goes up a good many notches when you consider the immense role the Election Commission can play in a transformation of national politics. Election Commissioner M. Sakhawat Hussain hinted at the powerful institution the EC could be when, the other day, he spoke of firm action against those in whose hands ballot papers were observed, outside the polling booth.
In these two years, for all the stumbling they sometimes fell to, the Chief Election Commissioner and his team have done a good job. For the first time since 1973 has the Election Commission made sure that the results of an election fully and definitively reflect the will of the people.
Sheikh Hasina and her government will now need to follow it all up, by ensuring the emergence of a free, powerful Election Commission, one that can match, in its actions and deeds, the performance of the Indian Election Commission, which T.N. Seshan once led so creditably. A.T.M. Shamsul Huda, Sohul Hussain and Sakhawat Hussain have proved to be dedicated, firm public servants. We need to have them carry on with their jobs.
Nur Mohammad is one other individual who has, through his bluntness of language, impressed people with thoughts of what he could possibly do to reinvent the nation's police force. He knows and acknowledges, as we all do, that the police in Bangladesh have never been able to turn themselves into a professional organisation largely because of the propensity of elected politicians and military dictators to use them as instruments to browbeat the opposition into submission. Perhaps the Inspector General of Police knows too, as the rest of us do, that recruitment into the police service in the five years of BNP-Jamaat rule was based on parochial political loyalties.
It is men like him the new government should be tapping into, for they can steer the police service away from politics and into the work the rules of service stipulate they should be doing. The prime minister and the cabinet ought to make it clear to the country that the police, indeed any force entrusted with the maintenance of public security, will function in the interest of the republic and not in the defence of the interests of the political parties or alliances in power.
The new government inherits terrible realities. It, therefore, cannot afford to make mistakes or drag its feet. It needs to be humble; it must demonstrate wisdom and it must reach out to all citizens. Sheikh Hasina's second stint in office must be an inclusive experience of throbbing, thriving, compassionate government.
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