The author concluded the following article by saying, "Fixing the mess is not impossible, but time is running out for this government to avoid the inevitable consequences of its inaction. Bangladeshis now face a twin dilemma: either postpone the promised elections—and face potential sanctions from nations whose aid and imports are critical for the economy; or saddle the people of Bangladesh with the same bad government and massive corruption they had know for decades."
I believe both of these dilemma can be avoided if the plans in the article below are adopted.
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WHAT EXIT STRATEGY SHOULD BE FOR THE C.T.G. & MILITARY?
Army backed CTG assumed power a little less than two years ago, while a general election was promised to be held within two years. It seems that the CTG has kept its promise and is trying to meet the originally promised milestone for election. However, it is observed that both the army and CTG are facing a host of problems in making the election happen in due time. Various political parties are buzzing differently. Some of them declared the election boycotts, some of them are putting hard and fast conditions, and some of them are asking to release their favorite people who are now under government custody for the charges of monetary corruptions. Grabbing political power by the military of the country is the highest form of political corruption. But the most arrogant behavior of the incumbent administration, the most dubious activities of the President, and the most destructive activities of the opposition compelled the highest fire-power of the country to step in to stop all those nonsense activities and save the people of the country from the extreme violence orchestrated by the so called politicians of both major parties.
After taking over the administrative power, both the CTG and the military, made a lot of mistakes one after the other. One dreadful mistake was lingering the monetary corruption drive for too long time without starting immediate due process for trial and punishment. Monetary corruptions are criminal offenses that had to be tried promptly by the law of the court, and move on. This is haunting this government severely. How come so many people are imprisoned without convicting any of the corrupted politicians? The government is releasing these corrupted politicians now without any legal due processes. So, what does that mean? Are they all innocent? If so, why they were in prison in the first place? If they were guilty, they must be punished. But why they are being released if they were suspected to be guilty when they were arrested? Does it mean that this government is whimsical? Where did the law and fairness go? All the mistakes done by the government have eroded the high praise that they won by significantly improving the law and order situation of the country.
No one in the world is without any errors, and not everybody has the utmost efficiency in their jobs. While the CTG and Army had no previous experience of running a country, they are expected to make some mistakes, but that should not let the sky fall. Solutions have to be searched by the government as well as everybody else in the country. It is the duty of all citizens of the country to try to help the government whatever way they can, and the government should make the environment such that people can interact with the government facing no troubles. Otherwise, a peaceful transition of power won't happen.
The present government is composed of two components, a civil CTG and an armed Military. Army came to power in the form of physical takeover, just short of declaring Martial Law. Improving the Law and order situation throughout the country is real praiseworthy. The country must have, for all times, this type of excellent law and order situation, no matter, who rules or what type of government runs the country. If the government can not provide law and order, everything of the country falls into the puddle. Until RAB was formed, the street thugs, hoodlums, private tax collectors, robbers, and illegal arm bearers would reign the entire country, bypassing the government. Sometimes these bad elements would even have the influence on the government and the government would have to favor them. That situation has been tackled wisely by the present government and so the people of the country started liking this government quite well. However, the CTG or the Army can not rule the country for too long time. But it is also true that the people of this country have not seen this sort of peace in law and order for the past several decades. Should people give it away soon? I don't think anybody would like to do it. So, what is the solution that this present government should look for such that a peaceful transfer of power would happen and the similar law and order, as we have today, will continue in the future days also?
It is real hard to find out any real and practical solution to keep peace as well as to get the democracy back. However, we need to make transition, and we must keep peace in the country by maintaining the law and order situation. How it can be achieved?
The existing political parties have already shown that they are extremely party aligned and the party leaders are not open enough to cooperate with the other parties. It has been seen in the past that the political parties are after their part interests only and not for the benefit of the people of the country. In this situation, if those old parties come to power again, definitely there will be no peace. In order to establish the legacy of the lasting peace in the country, there has to have some other ways, and some other means that the present government has to follow during the power transfer.
Government should form search committees, commissions, and enlightened groups to look for various options how the democracy can be established and the law and order can be maintained unconditionally. We lost already a lot of lives, properties, economic progress, fames, and fortunes because of the chaos, conflicts, and lawlessness in the country for quite a long time. Let's not repeat those unfortunate happenings in our country again. Reconciliation, Unity, Mutual Understanding, Ethics, Respect for Law, and to avoid all anarchism for ever can bring the country together towards a lasting peace. The traditional democracy is good where society is bonded and do not erupt suddenly with tiny bit of sparks hitting somewhere in the country. Bangladesh is still far away from reaching to that state. A lot of cultural and social traditions and bindings make that to happen. We need some time to learn those things.
Reforming the administrative structure of the government is necessary to be able to perform good governance for the country. One suggestion would be to modify the administrative structure of the government from one layer to three different layers. If the multi-layer government could be instituted, it would be very beneficial for the general public in order to be able to provide public administration services effectively creating a check and balance amongst the layers.
The first layer shall be county level, second layer shall be the district level, and the third level shall be the federal level for the entire country. Each level shall have the fully independent government, not being the part of the other levels. All districts shall be divided into four, five or six counties. Thereby the whole country would be divided into about 250 to 300 counties. Set up a local government for each county. This local County Government shall be responsible for all local administrations such as local legislative houses, local administrative boards, police, court, schools, land record and revenue, real estate development and zoning, taxation, business licensing and controls, roads, bridges, and other development works, hospitals, transportation, safety, security, public welfare, child protection, social work, industry, fishery, animal husbandry, agricultural, forestry, mining, water, electricity, gas, and other supplies, etc. All elementary, middle, and high schools in the county shall be run with the personal property taxes and other taxes collected form the county including the grants from the district government and federal government. All other components of the county government shall be run by the tax collected from the residents and businesses of that county plus the district and federal government grants and aids.
Let the District Administrations have the coordination, training and supervisory duties to look after the county administrations. District administrative employees shall be highly trained and well rounded professionals but the District Government shall be lean, less people but highly efficient at work with impressive compensation. The District Government shall have the administrative council and legislative bodies including the counterparts of each of the departments of the counties. Only at times of need they should deploy their respective teams to help the counties, should any need or crises arise. District administration should be able to collect moderate amount of tax from the incomes of the citizens and businesses in the district. Districts may set up model institutes, extra-ordinary schools and colleges. The universities shall be run by the districts. Inter-county commerce shall be controlled by the district. Districts shall build all transportation and communication highways, railways, airports, river and water development projects, research institutes, large scale hospitals, highway traffic police, district courts, district prisons, utility oversight boards, regulatory bodies, parks, museums, zoos, etc.
The federal government shall be the ultimate administrative, legislative, and regulatory body in the country. The administrative head may be a president or a prime minister based on whether parliamentary or presidential democracy is chosen by the people of the country. It can be decided by the polls or primary elections. Federal Government shall be in charge of key issues of the nation such as Military, Money, Foreign Policy, Inter-District and Foreign Commerce, National Affairs & Policies, Drug and Gangs Control, National Safety-Security-Homeland Protection, Industry Regulation, Financial & Market Economy Safeguarding, Deregulating and Privatizing Public Utilities, Foreign Aid Collection-Distribution-Payment, National highways & Transportation, and establishing Counterpart Departments to train and provide supports to the same in the district governments and in the county governments. Two tier legislative houses (upper & lower) would prepare laws of the country.
Why should we have this three tier governments in lieu of the present on tier Government of Bangladesh? The main reason is the focus of the government. It is always better to be the master of a trade instead of being the jack of all trades. When a one tier government takes care of all affairs in a nation, none of the affairs can be taken care of well. It puts the government into the situation of the jack of all trades. If the government has three tiers/layers then each layer can focus on the issues differently. The local government can take care of all peoples' affairs in its own territory such as public protection, law & order, schools, real estates, businesses, banking, transports, roads & highways, agriculture, industry, markets, health, hospitals, child welfare, land, forestry, fishery, animal husbandry, minerals, mining, and so on and so forth.
When area becomes smaller, most people know each other. Almost everyone knows who is a good person and who is a bad person. With this public knowledge, people can elect or select good people in the politics and administration. Bad, greedy, thugs, and cheats can be stopped this way to take the advantage of coming into politics and ruining the political environment. While public is administered by all these local county governments, the district and federal government can focus on support and policy making jobs. Since the district and federal government will not directly handle the real estates, properties, industries, and public directly, it will provide them an opportunity to be less greedy for real estates, properties, bribes, and hoarding. Also, the law & order and public protection services will be provided by the local government and so the district and federal government won't have to spend too much time on these crucial issues which will provide a very good opportunity to spend more time on researching and making public policies for the national stability and upliftment. The federal government will also get more opportunity to interact with the foreign government and international institutions such as IMF, World Bank, UNO, and other international organizations. This will greatly facilitate the federal government in bringing more international helps to build and progress the nation.
Aside from governance, this three tier government system in the country will provide a great opportunity to the people of the country to run the country with less dependence and helps from the politicians. It has been seen in the past that the election and politics in the third world countries in Asia and Africa has become the means of grabbing the state power and hoarding the wealth of the nation. When politicians fail, military takes over, and do the same thing. So, it is necessary to reduce the dependence of the public on the politicians and on the military of the country for public administration. A one tier government grabs all affairs of the administration in the country and so leaves no alternatives to public other than fully to depend on who grabbed the power (politicians or military). Alternatively, in the three tier/layer government, the local county government is composed of mainly the locally known famous persons regardless of their political affiliations. Military take over of the local government is highly unlikely mainly because the military always belongs to the central government and at the time of national crises, military takes over the central government.
If t three tier governments exist, even if the military takes over, the local government must remain functional and the military won't have enough manpower and resources to replace all the local civil governments to local military governments. So, even in the event of military takeover, all public will be basically administering the local county civil governments. This will affect very less the public and business lives of the country. Country will remain lot more stable as far as the public lives, economic and business operations. Moreover, a head of the county can be elected by the local people of the county who will better know who is a good leader, good social worker, honest, and basically a good person, no matter what party he/she is in or even an independent person. This way if the county people locally employ 250 to 300 county heads (with designation such as administrator, supervisor, chairman, president or CEO) in the entire country and they are given the status of being the member of parliament then this group of county administrators initially can engage into discussions with the present CTG and military rulers to formulate a permanent settlement on the transfer of power of the federal government to a settled civilian federal government.
If this power transfer job is handled by the political parties only, definitely there will be a lot of games on muscle, greed, power grabbing strategies, chaos, confusions, and it is feared that the pre one eleven situation will come back again to the country. This must be avoided al all costs by all patriotic honest people of the country. Only the dishonest traitors, cheaters, hoarders, and musclemen will be benefited by the repetition of the situation of pre-one eleven. The old politicians are all corrupt, dubious, inefficient, greedy, and outrageously dishonest. It is only hope that the new politicians out of new blood will emerge in future in the country to take the country into the right direction but it will definitely not happen if the pre-one eleven situation comes back in the country.
So, the suggestion to the CTG and the Military Government leaders to think about and form this three tier/layer government in the country before transferring the power to any other government. Elections did never solve our national problems, and will never do it unless it is done properly in a proper environment. Definitely elections will be needed for us to assume the democratic government but the situation of Bangladesh is at present in such a condition that a mere election will not resolve our acute national strife.
We must first put the nation in order. Create appropriate situation which I believe can be achieved by establishing this three tier government in the country now, leaving behind all other national power transfer activities. It is almost guaranteed that if it is not done today, it will never be done by the other governments in future mainly for the reason that the present condition of Bangladesh will not support or give birth to selfless politicians, rather will all be corrupt. The corrupt politicians will not adopt the three tier/layer government because it will stop them from looting and hoarding the state money and properties and will not provide the scope of reigning with their own gang of terrors and tax collectors (chadabuz). A country like ours must avoid going down the spirals of these unfortunate pitfalls for ever. It must be stopped somewhere and try to re-run with fairness, honesty and aptitude. The political bullies keep the good and honest people to take part in administration of the country politically or otherwise. So, if their scope of capitalizing the political muscle in public administration, they will try to adjust themselves also. So, let us try to establish these institutions for the good governance of the country before any other changes.
Let the public administration be run by these local governments for a test period of two, three or five years to see how effectively they are running the administration. In the mean time let all these 250 to 300 honest and independent county heads attend the temporary parliament and give their consensus on future national adoptions, policies and changes for the country; and see where they can take us. We have seen the politicians for long time; let us give chance to the independents to give a test run for the bright and stable future of our country.
If this process can be established, it will be the real people's participatory democracy, in essence what democracy really means (people's participation). In the current forms of party oriented democracy, either American style Presidential form of democracy, or the British style paliamentary democracy, people really participate only once during the election, while the members get elected in the house of reprsentatives. Afterwards, during the entire term of 4 years or 5 years, whatever be each country's rule, the common people of the country have no direct participation in the political process. Being the owner of the country, they just get ruled by the opportunist influentials instead of getting the chance of ruling their own country. Only they can barely beg something to their own elected representative, but most of the time, it does not work. Usually the representatives do not show up much in their own constituencies to see the problems of the people. Most of the time they live in the capital. Lobbies, rich corporations, foreign pressure, opportunists, and most of all the corrupt politicians ruin the welfare of the country.
If the party does not dictate, many sharp individuals will take politics as the profession, build themselves sincerely like other professionals do, and since everybody wants the own good, these people will be the keeper of beneficial public policies in the country and will certainly do good to the public, who essentially the people who they live with, and will get better in their actions day by day. Often times the party bullies the good non-aggressive but tolerant people and hire the musclemen to be powerful against the other parties. In a non-party system, this will stop for ever. Good people will come to politics, make it as life long career, do good for the people around, provide the chances to others to come in politics too; because most people someday will come to their committees as member by turns.
The committee members from all over the country, will be able to decide on the issues (political, administrative, judgemental, national security, physical planning, infrastructure improvement, national development, etc.) in each committee separately in each locality, send their decisions through the internet expeditiously to the upper levels; letting their decisions to know to all layers of the committees upto the top layer in the center of the country. The top management and administrative people in the country will thereby know the public support, that will help them to know instantaneously what to do in crafting the policies based on the public supports, and run the country smoothly, without rifting or creating the future turmoils, avoiding the ones that happened in the pre 1/11 period.
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Thanks and have a great day.
Regards,
KR
Will there be Elections in 2008?
Dr. Richard L. Benkin
Mahboobur Rahman's recent article in Weekly Blitz, "Rigidity of both AL & BNP foils government's efforts," should cause readers to wonder if the caretaker government will come through on its promise to hold democratic elections before the end of 2008. Bangladeshi representatives in Washington continue to stand behind their previous assurances to the US State Department that the elections will proceed as scheduled on December 18; but one source speaking on the condition of anonymity told me that he is not so sure. He refused to say, however, how the government would explain itself if the elections were not held this year. And while there are some explanations for a postponement that the US and others might accept, the closer we get to the election date, the less likely that becomes.Since the spring, I had been counseling a proactive course to prepare the international community—and especially the United States whose imports drive the Bangladeshi economy—for the possibility of no elections in 2008. That course also involves a measure of transparency and honesty, qualities that Washingtonians do not associate with Bangladesh's representatives. That was not heeded, and now any postponement would now be laid at the feet of the current government. When western powers pressed for a commitment to hold elections in 2008, the government assented instead of taking a stand as, for instance, the Turkish military has in several similar situations and making it clear that genuine elections might not be possible by the end of 2008. In other words, it over promised. The caretaker government committed itself to accomplishing something that was not within its control. The problem is made even larger since Bangladesh's track record in Washington is one of broken promise after broken promise regardless of individual ambassadors and governments. Many in DC were hoping that the current government was bringing something new to the table.
And so were most Bangladeshis. It was impossible to find any Bangladeshi not happy about the military intervention of January 11, 2007—except for those who had reason to fear being called to account for their past misdeeds. I had arrived in the capital three days earlier with just under two weeks before scheduled elections. The situation was chaotic with Awami League head Sheikh Hasina publicly calling for her followers to "shut down the country," with violence if necessary; and her followers were listening to her. She did this even though the international community already supported her contention that rival Bangladesh National Party (BNP) had rigged the upcoming elections in their favor. In fact, in a historically unparalleled move, every western democracy was urging the Bangladeshis not to hold their election, so transparent was BNP's fraud. With both major parties now out of control and a far more dangerous situation looming for Bangladeshis, the military intervened.
The new government started out with a pledge to sweep away the corruption that was preventing truly free elections. It fearlessly arrested former corrupt officials who had been robbing the people of Bangladesh for decades with complete impunity. With the arrests of Hasina and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, it looked like the government was trying to create an entirely new political dynamic in the country and exclude the old parties from any new elections. Donor and importing nations were quiet at first, speaking in general platitudes about "speedy" elections, and left it to the government to define what speedy is. The government could have referred to its gargantuan task of undoing decades of corruption, inefficiency, and sponsorship of radical Islam; but rather than insisting on Bangladesh's sovereign right to determine when elections would bring real democracy to the people, it scurried to placate the international community. Nor did it take any action when groups with ties to both BNP and especially Awami labeled it as a military dictatorship in many of those capitals. Once that happened, the same powers that called for the 2007 election halted insisted on holding them now. Thus was squandered a great deal of time and Bangladesh's ability to control its own destiny.
Recent negotiations with the two major parties have brought the process full circle. There no evidence that either party is any different today than they were on in January 2007, but the caretaker government has tacitly let the parties know that their participation is critical for the election's credibility. How bizarre is that? The two parties responsible for a halt to elections are now told they are necessary for elections. Nor has their participation been made contingent on actions to end their corruption, sponsorship of radicals, and oppression of minorities. What assurances do the people of Bangladesh have that they will not see a return to the previous status quo when Awami and BNP both used the Bangladeshi treasury as their personal ATM machines? How can the tens of millions of minorities see any hope for them in either party? There also is no evidence that the caretaker government tried to make a case for itself with the international community. Its Anti-Corruption Committee had uncovered piles of evidence indicting the parties and their leaders with massive corruption. Figures on the amount of spoils Awami and BNP reaped from the racist Vested Property Act are alone enough to discredit them before the international community; but that was never done.
Fixing the mess is not impossible, but time is running out for this government to avoid the inevitable consequences of its inaction. Bangladeshis now face a twin dilemma: either postpone the promised elections—and face potential sanctions from nations whose aid and imports are critical for the economy; or saddle the people of Bangladesh with the same bad government and massive corruption they had know for decades.
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