Bangladesh generally goes through a routine cycle of turbulence during election times. Both the ruling and opposition parties take a confrontational stand to realise their demands, causing sufferings to the common people and hurting the economy. The upcoming election is no exception and the country has already witnessed a lot of strikes and acts of vandalism, which have forced the business community to wait before making any crucial decisions.
The ongoing political turmoil and apprehension of further unrest ahead makes the business community more vulnerable than perhaps any other quarters. Business leaders have already urged the political parties to ensure political stability in the country to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as domestic investment.
At present, the politicians are in serious disagreements over the mechanism of holding the next polls. Political activities should not harm lives and livelihoods of the common people, destroy property and damage the economy ahead of the general elections. Maintaining economic stability even after the polls is one of the most vital issues now.
Both the ruling party and the opposition have taken very inflexible positions and are unwilling to give in for the sake of a settlement/compromise. Moreover, apparent lack of a solution to the electoral mechanism suggests that growing tensions and violent protests would gain momentum to the utter misery of the people.
Managing the economy is becoming harder day by day, which is not only blocking the country's economic progress, but affecting the prospects that are in the pipeline. A study, conducted by the think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on the political business cycle (PBC), says, governments in low-income countries like Bangladesh tend to increase consumption expenditures during election years, while investments remain unchanged. The overall fiscal deficit ratio increases by about one per cent of the GDP gross domestic product during an election year. Revenue collection falls but rises after the election. CPD's analysis, which found the impacts of PBC in the Bangladesh economy, also says that the country's real GDP growth slowed down by 0.67 percentage point in this election year. Public investment and tax revenue also went down by 0.21 and 0.16 percentage points respectively while revenue expenditure increased by 0.17 percentage point.
Expenditure of political parties rises during election time but it does not help the economy, as the huge amount of money spent on campaigns and a host of other activities does not find any productive outlet. Â
Political parties should give priority to economic issues in their respective election manifestos to be prepared ahead of the upcoming 10th national parliamentary election. Election manifestos should focus on development issues such as improving law and order situation, political stability, continuity of development initiatives, good governance and corruption-free environment, strengthening of local government, high GDP growth target. Alongside, the policymakers in office need to redefine the fiscal goals, promote investment in the private sector, maintain support to the crop sector and control inflationary pressure.
shahana_bilkis@yahoo.com
Economic stability ahead of general elections
Shahana Bilkis | Published: November 14, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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