Reforming BNP
Abdullah A. Dewan
A common trend has emerged between the American Republican party (GOP) and BNP in Bangladesh -- both are in disarray. The former is greatly weakened while the latter is nearly irrelevant as influential opposition voices in each country's policy shaping.
GOP lawmakers have turned their party into a party of "no" by opposing nearly everything President Obama proposes and, in the process, have alienated many moderate Americans. In Bangladesh, BNP sees politicking and conspiracy in everything the ruling party plans to achieve. Isn't it laughable that the opposition party is asking the ruling party -- one that formed the government only four months ago -- to quit governance for its failure to deliver on its election pledges?
After its whopping loss in the November election, the GOP elected former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele as the first ever African American to be the party's national committee chairman. He was expected to revamp the party and expand the base, hoping to improve its standing in both Houses of the Congress in the 2010 mid-term election.
Because of inching increasingly into extreme conservative ideologies, the GOP has lost its clout as a centrist party. In last week's nationwide poll, only 21% Americans identified themselves as Republicans. The exodus from GOP to Independents and Democrats started from President Bush's false pretexts for the Iraq war, which compromised personal freedom in the name of national security (e.g. wiretapping of US citizens), caused unprecedented deficit spending, and pushed many domestic issues further to the right, thus estranging moderate Republicans. A shocking fallout of this is the defection of Senator Arlene Specter of Pennsylvania to the Democratic Party.
This defection strengthened the Senate Democrats closer to a sweeping power in Washington while preventing the remaining 40 GOP lawmakers from being a strong influential force in the Senate. What has all this got to do with Bangladesh politics? Learning how to realign, reform and regroup the party in light of evolving political realities.
While GOP's political setback has resulted from its ideological push to the far right, BNP's downfall was caused by its politicians' reckless indulgence in mis-governance, mischief, and political repression. GOP think tanks are advising the party stalwarts to realign its ideological tenets so as to make it more inclusive to regain its glorious days. The article by David Frum, "How to build GOP," listed in politiconomy.com, may be instructive for BNP as well.
My only rationale for wishing that BNP rebuilds is to see it as an effective political opposition so as to stop AL from drifting into BNP's 2001 -- 2006 misrule era. Organising a month-long countrywide protest and brouhaha for revocation of lease termination notice of Khaleda's house isn't a political strategy -- it's a dumb strategy. Also, organising mammoth gatherings in Paltan Maidan similar to pre-election rallies is good only for show and tell unless the grassroot supporters are rejuvenated. BNP' leadership must realize that political kerfuffle outside the parliament on flimsy issues will only hurt the people's causes and the party's own standing.
Given BNP's thrashing in the last election and AL's governance being much too short to dissect for political advantage, it seems as though BNP leaders are somewhat befuddled as to what issue to raise for energising the downcast base and transforming that into a countrywide agitation. Not surprisingly, even the BNP's alleged "corrupticians" who have resurfaced on bails are also apparently loathe to join the eviction notice revocation movement for various reasons.
Many BNP politicians, instead of actively reorganising the party, are now engaged in internal power struggle to the consternation of grassroot party activists. For example, the rift between Sadeque Hossain Khoka and Mirza Abbas about Dhaka city BNP leadership, allegedly insinuated by Delwar Hossain, couldn't have come at a worse time.
Although over 1100 politicians have applied for dismissal of their corruption charges as being politically motivated, by my last review not too many of BNP's corrupticians would qualify for dismissal of their cases. Therefore, BNP would be well advised to boot out all its corrupt politicians from the party and replace them with young and well qualified ones for rebuilding the party.
Gaining the people's confidence in the party will require repeated, unqualified apology to the people about the Zia family and BNP politicians' indiscretions. The party, in line with popular demand, should also oppose issues such as the recently passed local government act, tax free car imports for MPs, dismissal of corruption cases against politicians by short-circuiting the legal process, and so on. All these measures may help in rebranding the party and save it from its increasing isolation, irrelevance and slow extinction.
GOP lawmakers have turned their party into a party of "no" by opposing nearly everything President Obama proposes and, in the process, have alienated many moderate Americans. In Bangladesh, BNP sees politicking and conspiracy in everything the ruling party plans to achieve. Isn't it laughable that the opposition party is asking the ruling party -- one that formed the government only four months ago -- to quit governance for its failure to deliver on its election pledges?
After its whopping loss in the November election, the GOP elected former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele as the first ever African American to be the party's national committee chairman. He was expected to revamp the party and expand the base, hoping to improve its standing in both Houses of the Congress in the 2010 mid-term election.
Because of inching increasingly into extreme conservative ideologies, the GOP has lost its clout as a centrist party. In last week's nationwide poll, only 21% Americans identified themselves as Republicans. The exodus from GOP to Independents and Democrats started from President Bush's false pretexts for the Iraq war, which compromised personal freedom in the name of national security (e.g. wiretapping of US citizens), caused unprecedented deficit spending, and pushed many domestic issues further to the right, thus estranging moderate Republicans. A shocking fallout of this is the defection of Senator Arlene Specter of Pennsylvania to the Democratic Party.
This defection strengthened the Senate Democrats closer to a sweeping power in Washington while preventing the remaining 40 GOP lawmakers from being a strong influential force in the Senate. What has all this got to do with Bangladesh politics? Learning how to realign, reform and regroup the party in light of evolving political realities.
While GOP's political setback has resulted from its ideological push to the far right, BNP's downfall was caused by its politicians' reckless indulgence in mis-governance, mischief, and political repression. GOP think tanks are advising the party stalwarts to realign its ideological tenets so as to make it more inclusive to regain its glorious days. The article by David Frum, "How to build GOP," listed in politiconomy.com, may be instructive for BNP as well.
My only rationale for wishing that BNP rebuilds is to see it as an effective political opposition so as to stop AL from drifting into BNP's 2001 -- 2006 misrule era. Organising a month-long countrywide protest and brouhaha for revocation of lease termination notice of Khaleda's house isn't a political strategy -- it's a dumb strategy. Also, organising mammoth gatherings in Paltan Maidan similar to pre-election rallies is good only for show and tell unless the grassroot supporters are rejuvenated. BNP' leadership must realize that political kerfuffle outside the parliament on flimsy issues will only hurt the people's causes and the party's own standing.
Given BNP's thrashing in the last election and AL's governance being much too short to dissect for political advantage, it seems as though BNP leaders are somewhat befuddled as to what issue to raise for energising the downcast base and transforming that into a countrywide agitation. Not surprisingly, even the BNP's alleged "corrupticians" who have resurfaced on bails are also apparently loathe to join the eviction notice revocation movement for various reasons.
Many BNP politicians, instead of actively reorganising the party, are now engaged in internal power struggle to the consternation of grassroot party activists. For example, the rift between Sadeque Hossain Khoka and Mirza Abbas about Dhaka city BNP leadership, allegedly insinuated by Delwar Hossain, couldn't have come at a worse time.
Although over 1100 politicians have applied for dismissal of their corruption charges as being politically motivated, by my last review not too many of BNP's corrupticians would qualify for dismissal of their cases. Therefore, BNP would be well advised to boot out all its corrupt politicians from the party and replace them with young and well qualified ones for rebuilding the party.
Gaining the people's confidence in the party will require repeated, unqualified apology to the people about the Zia family and BNP politicians' indiscretions. The party, in line with popular demand, should also oppose issues such as the recently passed local government act, tax free car imports for MPs, dismissal of corruption cases against politicians by short-circuiting the legal process, and so on. All these measures may help in rebranding the party and save it from its increasing isolation, irrelevance and slow extinction.
Dr. Abdullah A. Dewan, founder of politiconomy.com, is Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=86917
__._,_.___
