[chottala.com] A telling refusal

A telling refusal

Syed Badrul Ahsan

The refusal, for that is what it is, by Tofail Ahmed and Rashed Khan Menon to accept the offer of places in Sheikh Hasina's cabinet is telling. While Menon has been clear about the reasons behind his unwillingness to be a minister, Tofail has been more diplomatic in his explanation of why he did not want to be one.

Fundamentally, though, the ground on which these two men have not accepted ministerial positions is the same. One has only to read between the lines to know that they are not willing to be part of a system which is now in its final stretch of governance before the next general election is upon the country.

The surprise, however, is not that Tofail Ahmed and Rashed Khan Menon do not wish to be ministers at this stage. The surprise is couched in the question of why Sheikh Hasina decided to add to an already outsize cabinet in the final year of her government's five-year term in office.

This surprise would not have been there had men like Tofail, tested in the crucible of politics since the late 1960s, been inducted into the cabinet in January 2009. The surprise, at that point, was that Tofail and all the other heavyweights of the Awami League had not been taken into government. What was offered to the country was a brand new cabinet, comprising basically newcomers. Most ministers were first timers and quite naturally questions were raised about the level of performance they would put up.

In these nearly four years since the Awami League and its allies took office, many of the worries caused by the prime minister's selection of ministers have turned out to have been well-placed. This fourth tinkering with the cabinet does not promise any change in conditions.

A rather disturbing thought has been raised by the induction of new ministers in the cabinet. It is that the prime minister and her colleagues, battered by scams a little too many, and other crises and public perceptions of their inability to be in control, have now embraced the idea that new people in the cabinet could help revive the ruling party's fortunes as it approaches new elections.

For the new ministers, it will be a difficult calling. In the first place, the party will expect them to turn things around for the government before the elections. In the second, like so many others already in the cabinet, most of them are inexperienced in ministerial office. More important than all this is that contrary to all expectations of a cabinet reshuffle, the country has been treated to the spectacle of a cabinet expansion. Now, accommodating the new entrants will entail a redefinition of the work of the ministries, indeed a possible bifurcation of some of them. An unwieldy cabinet, much like the sixty-member council of ministers formed by the BNP when it returned to power in 2001, is now in office in an Awami League dispensation.

The cabinet expansion raises anew the issue of those ministers who ought to have been dropped because of poor performance. Changes have for long been expected in such ministries as home, information and culture, shipping, overseas employment and expatriates welfare and a few others. To what extent the foreign office needs a new minister has also been in the air. Whether planning should be part of the responsibility of the finance minister is a matter which calls for careful reflection. The fact that none of the individuals manning these ministries has been asked to leave or has been taken off will certainly disappoint the country.

Whether the inclusion, on second thought, of two former diplomats-turned-Awami Leaguers in the cabinet will inject vigour into government will exercise the public mind.

It is a gamble the prime minister has gone for. And now that Tofail Ahmed and Rashed Khan Menon have, in an unprecedented move, opted to stay out of government, the stakes for Sheikh Hasina have gone a little higher. The last year before a nation elects a new parliament is decisive for a government, especially if it is perceived to be weak or incompetent or besieged or all these three. Such a government is pushed to the wall. Or, fighting back in miraculously inexplicable new strength, it comes back for a fresh tryst with power.

For now, though, much of the excitement that could have been generated by the arrival of these new ministers has been dampened by Tofail Ahmed's patent refusal to take up an offer that others are only too ready to accept. The same holds true for Rashed Khan Menon.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=249850

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