Banglar Bir
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Diplomatic interventions mount for early election
Shahid Islam
A vicious spectacle is slowly taking shape as Bangladesh squabbles over the modalities of holding a credible election nearly half a century after becoming a sovereign nation. The emerging spectacle, however, is a repeatedly seen boring movie that no one wants to see again.
What is most worrying is that, in the process, some scripts from the ancient Chinese General, strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu’s (544–496 BC) ‘The Art of War’ is on the play. Sun Tzu exhorted the importance of knowing one’s enemy to make victory ensured, which is what the ruling AL and the BNP are diligently, and doggedly, trying to achieve.
Government loosing grounds
But the government is losing grounds. The BNP is aware of the ruling party’s ultimate desire to cling onto power by any means, which an inclusive fair election will delude, given the AL’s track records in governance.
Lately, the economy has been rendered jaundiced by financial scandals in Bangladesh Bank and other state-owned banks; gradually falling export and remittance earnings; massive unemployment denying work opportunity to nearly 30 per cent of university graduates; and a virtual famine battering lives of nearly two millions in the flood and landslide ravaged localities. The impact of flood damage and landslides could alone rob the GDP of about 1.5 percent of its desired target.
Added to it the rapidly deteriorating law and order situation and the lingering uncertainty about a rapprochement between the AL and the BNP over the election-time governance modalities, the spectacle of external diplomatic interventions did not totally spring from the blue. No sooner Khaleda Zia flew out of Dhaka, foreign diplomats began to meet senior government functionaries to know what boiled beneath the surface.
Sources say BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will meet a number of foreign dignitaries during her ongoing treatment-related visit to the UK while diplomats of the USA, UK and few EU nations have been meeting ministers and advisers in Dhaka to fix the election-related uncertainties, which all agree to be more expedient now under the fast deteriorating socio-political-economic circumstances.
US’s renewed assertiveness
The White House under Donald Trump may be in disarray, but The Holiday had learnt that the USA’s Department of State (DOS) is playing more assertive role in making an inclusive election in Bangladesh a reality, abandoning its years-long hands off approach that banked on regional power India to play that role. “The DOS is convinced that India did not perform as expected in bringing back democracy to Bangladesh,” said a source preferring anonymity. In this great game, China, Russia and the USA stand on the same platform against India in installing a fairly-elected regime in Bangladesh. “Indian diplomacy in Bangladesh is a total catastrophe,” mourned a retired Bangladesh ambassador.
The renewed diplomatic onslaughts are understandable given that the UK and the leading EU nations have long been openly expressing their desire for a credible, inclusive election in Bangladesh. They’re more desperate now under the ‘time trap’ within which holding of an early general election has become indispensable to shield Bangladesh from a number of internal and external dangers.
The economic worries aside, threats from radical Islamists are existential while India’s communal disharmony is impacting Bangladesh politics in big ways. Above all, in South Asia, Bangladesh is the only country to have a political regime not elected in a fair, inclusive and credible election.
Constitutional void
What had wheeled the nation to the precinct of such a dreaded precipice is very simple: the desire of the two major political parties not to look eye ball to eye ball. If they’d sat together and crafted ways to avoid political confrontations, foreign intervention would have been skirted off by a large measure.
Now that the election fever had hit the ruling party, and the country, so sooner is due to the implied ‘non-confidence’ on the regime since the Supreme Court’s upholding of a High Court decision to declare the 16th amendment null and void, and thereby creating a constitutional vacuum in the absence of any codified mechanism being in place to deal with the disciplining and the impeachment of top-ranking judges of the country. The parliament’s stubborn tantrum in open proceeding not to abide by the Supreme Court decision had transformed the fiasco into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The only sensible, logical and democratic way to leap out of this crisis is either to refer the debate of the 16th amendment to a referendum, which the amended constitution doesn’t allow (see last week’s Holiday), or call for an early election. An early election is much overdue due to the government’s visible agility in standing opposed to the interpretation of the laws (relating to the 16th amendments bona fides) rendered by the nation’s supreme judicial body. Mere assertions that the parliament is sovereign and the issue is not a bread and butter matter are not enough to fill the constitutional void and the consequent ‘no-confidence’ perception, and, its legal implications.
Likely scenarios
By now it’s known to observers at home and abroad that the incumbent regime will not change the constitution it had amended willy-nilly to keep the BNP at the bay from coming to power any time sooner, while the BNP’s option to partake in an election without installing a neutral regime for the interregnum is limited by its 2014 abstention from joining the polls under the same demands and circumstances. The BNP must stick to what it believes in to spare its credibility from utter ruination.
And, in the midst of this festering constitutional crisis, devastating natural disasters, hyperinflation in mostly-used food and commodity prices, and, the rates of crimes shooting above the sky, bucks certainly stop on the government’s table. The government alone can stop an avalanche of miseries hitting the nation sooner.
Telltale signs
That seems unlikely. The ruling party secretary general Obaidul Quader’s quip-rinsed comment that “The BNP ‘s chairperson (Khaleda Zia) had fled the country to avoid conviction and may not return” is a serious indication that Mrs. Zia might have been forced out of the country in order to hold an election with she and her son, Tarek Rahman, being in exile. Independently unverified reports claim, “Coercion acted in making Khaleda Zia depart the country abruptly after having reiterating during the Ramadan that her road map for the poll time government would be revealed after the Eid.”
The BNP now maintains its pipeline roadmap will be revealed after Khaleda Zia’s return from the UK two months from now, prompting the government to devise its own roadmap that will, according to party insiders, stick to the polling taking place under the incumbent regime and Sheikh Hasina, her party, and the parliament and the cabinet, being in power to steer the election to the direction they choose to. In response to Obaidul Quader’s ‘fleeing the country’ claim, Khaleda Zia responded: “A monarchy has been installed in the country. I’ll return after completing the treatment.”
May be Mrs. Zia need some tips from Her Majesty the Queen of England on understanding the mantras of how monarchies are installed and dismantled. Meanwhile, sources say, an understanding of sort had been reached between the BNP and may other stakeholders before Mrs. Zia left the country.
This has prompted the Nagorik Oikyo leader Mahmudur Rahman Manna to demand for constitutional amendment following a police-chased, botched indoor meeting in the capital’s Uttora last week, in which leaders of about 10 other political parties and civil-society outfits reported to have attended.
Shifting reality
Be that whatever, punditry in politics is often perilous. Power falters, sands move, sentiments fluctuate and agendas are mostly driven by the shifting clays of reality. If one talks about the degree of public support for the incumbent AL regime at his very moment, one is slammed to shudder, or be truthful to say that the ruling party diehards and their cohorts only want the country to stay stymied under the crippling status quo.
Others believe that change is what is needed and wanted. They think, and national interest warrants that a fairly played electioneering must decide what people want. If voters foist the mandate on the AL again, so be it. The AL must face the reality and sit with all stakeholders to devise and implement a freshly designed election roadmap. That roadmap should be a sustainable one so that the nation doesn’t indulge in future squabbles on how to change governments every five years on.
The final scenario, which the failure to do the above will yield, is an internal intervention of unconstitutional entities against which the judiciary, the executives and the legislature will stay gasped, helpless and astounded.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx
Shahid Islam
A vicious spectacle is slowly taking shape as Bangladesh squabbles over the modalities of holding a credible election nearly half a century after becoming a sovereign nation. The emerging spectacle, however, is a repeatedly seen boring movie that no one wants to see again.
What is most worrying is that, in the process, some scripts from the ancient Chinese General, strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu’s (544–496 BC) ‘The Art of War’ is on the play. Sun Tzu exhorted the importance of knowing one’s enemy to make victory ensured, which is what the ruling AL and the BNP are diligently, and doggedly, trying to achieve.
Government loosing grounds
But the government is losing grounds. The BNP is aware of the ruling party’s ultimate desire to cling onto power by any means, which an inclusive fair election will delude, given the AL’s track records in governance.
Lately, the economy has been rendered jaundiced by financial scandals in Bangladesh Bank and other state-owned banks; gradually falling export and remittance earnings; massive unemployment denying work opportunity to nearly 30 per cent of university graduates; and a virtual famine battering lives of nearly two millions in the flood and landslide ravaged localities. The impact of flood damage and landslides could alone rob the GDP of about 1.5 percent of its desired target.
Added to it the rapidly deteriorating law and order situation and the lingering uncertainty about a rapprochement between the AL and the BNP over the election-time governance modalities, the spectacle of external diplomatic interventions did not totally spring from the blue. No sooner Khaleda Zia flew out of Dhaka, foreign diplomats began to meet senior government functionaries to know what boiled beneath the surface.
Sources say BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will meet a number of foreign dignitaries during her ongoing treatment-related visit to the UK while diplomats of the USA, UK and few EU nations have been meeting ministers and advisers in Dhaka to fix the election-related uncertainties, which all agree to be more expedient now under the fast deteriorating socio-political-economic circumstances.
US’s renewed assertiveness
The White House under Donald Trump may be in disarray, but The Holiday had learnt that the USA’s Department of State (DOS) is playing more assertive role in making an inclusive election in Bangladesh a reality, abandoning its years-long hands off approach that banked on regional power India to play that role. “The DOS is convinced that India did not perform as expected in bringing back democracy to Bangladesh,” said a source preferring anonymity. In this great game, China, Russia and the USA stand on the same platform against India in installing a fairly-elected regime in Bangladesh. “Indian diplomacy in Bangladesh is a total catastrophe,” mourned a retired Bangladesh ambassador.
The renewed diplomatic onslaughts are understandable given that the UK and the leading EU nations have long been openly expressing their desire for a credible, inclusive election in Bangladesh. They’re more desperate now under the ‘time trap’ within which holding of an early general election has become indispensable to shield Bangladesh from a number of internal and external dangers.
The economic worries aside, threats from radical Islamists are existential while India’s communal disharmony is impacting Bangladesh politics in big ways. Above all, in South Asia, Bangladesh is the only country to have a political regime not elected in a fair, inclusive and credible election.
Constitutional void
What had wheeled the nation to the precinct of such a dreaded precipice is very simple: the desire of the two major political parties not to look eye ball to eye ball. If they’d sat together and crafted ways to avoid political confrontations, foreign intervention would have been skirted off by a large measure.
Now that the election fever had hit the ruling party, and the country, so sooner is due to the implied ‘non-confidence’ on the regime since the Supreme Court’s upholding of a High Court decision to declare the 16th amendment null and void, and thereby creating a constitutional vacuum in the absence of any codified mechanism being in place to deal with the disciplining and the impeachment of top-ranking judges of the country. The parliament’s stubborn tantrum in open proceeding not to abide by the Supreme Court decision had transformed the fiasco into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The only sensible, logical and democratic way to leap out of this crisis is either to refer the debate of the 16th amendment to a referendum, which the amended constitution doesn’t allow (see last week’s Holiday), or call for an early election. An early election is much overdue due to the government’s visible agility in standing opposed to the interpretation of the laws (relating to the 16th amendments bona fides) rendered by the nation’s supreme judicial body. Mere assertions that the parliament is sovereign and the issue is not a bread and butter matter are not enough to fill the constitutional void and the consequent ‘no-confidence’ perception, and, its legal implications.
Likely scenarios
By now it’s known to observers at home and abroad that the incumbent regime will not change the constitution it had amended willy-nilly to keep the BNP at the bay from coming to power any time sooner, while the BNP’s option to partake in an election without installing a neutral regime for the interregnum is limited by its 2014 abstention from joining the polls under the same demands and circumstances. The BNP must stick to what it believes in to spare its credibility from utter ruination.
And, in the midst of this festering constitutional crisis, devastating natural disasters, hyperinflation in mostly-used food and commodity prices, and, the rates of crimes shooting above the sky, bucks certainly stop on the government’s table. The government alone can stop an avalanche of miseries hitting the nation sooner.
Telltale signs
That seems unlikely. The ruling party secretary general Obaidul Quader’s quip-rinsed comment that “The BNP ‘s chairperson (Khaleda Zia) had fled the country to avoid conviction and may not return” is a serious indication that Mrs. Zia might have been forced out of the country in order to hold an election with she and her son, Tarek Rahman, being in exile. Independently unverified reports claim, “Coercion acted in making Khaleda Zia depart the country abruptly after having reiterating during the Ramadan that her road map for the poll time government would be revealed after the Eid.”
The BNP now maintains its pipeline roadmap will be revealed after Khaleda Zia’s return from the UK two months from now, prompting the government to devise its own roadmap that will, according to party insiders, stick to the polling taking place under the incumbent regime and Sheikh Hasina, her party, and the parliament and the cabinet, being in power to steer the election to the direction they choose to. In response to Obaidul Quader’s ‘fleeing the country’ claim, Khaleda Zia responded: “A monarchy has been installed in the country. I’ll return after completing the treatment.”
May be Mrs. Zia need some tips from Her Majesty the Queen of England on understanding the mantras of how monarchies are installed and dismantled. Meanwhile, sources say, an understanding of sort had been reached between the BNP and may other stakeholders before Mrs. Zia left the country.
This has prompted the Nagorik Oikyo leader Mahmudur Rahman Manna to demand for constitutional amendment following a police-chased, botched indoor meeting in the capital’s Uttora last week, in which leaders of about 10 other political parties and civil-society outfits reported to have attended.
Shifting reality
Be that whatever, punditry in politics is often perilous. Power falters, sands move, sentiments fluctuate and agendas are mostly driven by the shifting clays of reality. If one talks about the degree of public support for the incumbent AL regime at his very moment, one is slammed to shudder, or be truthful to say that the ruling party diehards and their cohorts only want the country to stay stymied under the crippling status quo.
Others believe that change is what is needed and wanted. They think, and national interest warrants that a fairly played electioneering must decide what people want. If voters foist the mandate on the AL again, so be it. The AL must face the reality and sit with all stakeholders to devise and implement a freshly designed election roadmap. That roadmap should be a sustainable one so that the nation doesn’t indulge in future squabbles on how to change governments every five years on.
The final scenario, which the failure to do the above will yield, is an internal intervention of unconstitutional entities against which the judiciary, the executives and the legislature will stay gasped, helpless and astounded.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx
