The probability factor in politics
Monday, 2 July 2007
Qazi Azad
Bangladesh politics is manifestly passing through a major turning point. The systemic changes in the party apparatus reportedly being contemplated by the major two political parties go much beyond the concept of the so-called 'minus two' theory- a widely spread rumour suggesting untold moves for replacing the two lady party chiefs, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and AL President Sheikh Hasina.
Ideally, the reforms in the major two parties being considered by their reformist leaders are their respective moves to improve the party management and to open up scope for a steady improvement of quality of party and national leadership. But when one mentions about the so-called 'minus two' theory in explaining the objectives of the moves, it smacks of a filthy conspiracy against the two ladies.
This foul smell fuels the apprehension that these prominent two might go for a showdown in self-defense with the reformists. An unabated emphasis on the so-called theory may incite these two tough ladies having significant charisma and the arrogance of purpose for a strong display of their individual support base among the masses. They may be just waiting for an opportune time for the show of strength. If they do so either collectively or individually, events following October 28, 2006, may revive in another form. Its fierceness may vary but it will linger.
Generally, Bangladeshis sympathise with the opposition to the establishment. Historically, they have done so. That's why no significant political movement in this region-prior to and after independence-waned out without reaching the crescendo. While the fierceness of a movement varied from time to time, its cause did never die out until its objective was attained. In the apparent volatility of Bangladeshi character, there is also a latent tendency in him or her to go with the seemingly oppressed. They also go with the arch populists who can effectively appeal to their human weaknesses, for which they have been frequently cheated.
It is thus essential that the proposed political party reforms be carried out with the consent of the two leaders, or it should be at least sufficiently apparent to the masses that the two ladies are not being unnecessarily victimized or consigned to obscurity through any conspiracy. One may recall that one-time Congress President Moulana Azad of this sub-continent could not sell in independent India the idea of Pandit Nehru being primarily responsible for the partition of the sub-continent and that Ayub Khan could not sell the idea of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman having conspired sometime in the early 1960s in Agartola to break up Pakistan.
The publics need to be told and convinced that the reforms are intended for a steady improvement of national leadership through a process of smooth political party leadership changes. As democracy is ruling with consent of the masses, the process of political party leadership changes should be brought about on appealing extensively to their good senses. The reformists must also convince themselves that the broad publics are satisfied with their reform proposals prior to putting those into effect.
For the contemplated reforms to be acceptable to the board masses, their contents, approaches and policy measures should be justifiable in public eye. In other words, the proposed reforms must provide their own justifications for policy changes to appear rational. Any discriminatory provision for entry into party constitution as a reform measure, which would provide rules variously to safeguard or segregate individuals holding different party posts from the top to influential senior levels, might annoy the masses and propel them into inventing a foul play. Provisions like party chairperson or president being barred from holding the party top post for more than two terms, as being discussed, would appear discriminatory to the masses unless it is so provided that other important party office bearers, like vice-chairpersons or vice-presidents, general secretary, joint secretaries and other secretaries, cannot hold the same offices for more than the same number of terms or for more than a period equivalent to the length of such terms.
Consistency of the reform proposals would substantiate any claim that these are not person-specific and not intended to unnecessarily dwarf or knock out any specific person from a party position. Uniform conditions about the terms of office that a person would be permitted to hold by a reformed party constitution can be defended by asserting that these would provide the opportunity for upward mobility of able political leaders across the party structure.
A reformed party constitution should also provide that all the important party posts would be filled up through intra-party elections, participated by party councillors. The provision would eliminate non-charismatic, incompetent leaders from party positions and make room for better ones to rise up and join senior party ranks.
Similarly, there should be a provision for choosing party office bearers down to the upazila level through elections. The tenure of each term for holding office should be clearly spelt out. The Election Commission (EC) may, through a rule or law, require every party registered with it to submit the list of all elected leaders with their designations, academic qualifications and vocations within two months of the expiry of the stipulated term. There may be a provision in the EC's rule or law stating that any default in this regard will result in the cancellation of the party registration and disqualify it for participation in the subsequent national elections at any level unless a natural disaster of a cataclysmic proportion or a war has prevented the party from holding the due party elections.
For the purpose of symmetry among political parties, which is essential for avoiding future inter-party conflicts on the length of a term of office of their office-bearers, all political parties may be required to stipulate it in their constitutions and its length should be identical. It would not only ensure equality of office bearers of all parties in the eye of the law, but also exclude the possibility of some parties' chiefs being or having the prospect of being the prime minister of the country for longer periods, which might at some stage generate inter-party conflicts.
The best arrangement, which could exclude the necessity for the EC to have a rule for ensuring all those, noted above, would be a constitutional provision prohibiting the holding of the office of the prime minister and that of the president by the same persons for more than two terms. It would have precluded intra-party manipulations by influential charismatic leaders and tamed their passion for holding senior party positions for an indefinite and long period.
The reported thinking in some quarters of the AL about having provisions in their party constitution for one set of leaders to hold party offices and another set to form the government on winning a general election seems to be ignoring the influence of quality of leadership in the matter of discipline within party ranks. Whoever scales to the top of a party either through election or party choice invariably commands the loyalty of the party leaders and workers. In the parliamentary form of government, as ours, this loyalty element is highly important for cohesiveness and stability of the government. None other than the party chief can normally enjoy the kind of undisputed loyalty of the party leaders to ensure that cohesiveness and stability of a parliamentary type of government where the prime minister is the presiding cabinet minister, the mighty first among equals for the purpose of working out consensus through discussions in cabinet meetings and for putting up searching over-head questions on serious issues to a minister or a group of ministers, which no one or more equal ministers will dare to ask a colleague in apprehension of possible conflicts and subsequent rivalry.
The said thinking could be, however, proper and workable in the presidential form of government, under which once the party-nominated presidential candidate has won and been declared elected, he or she immediately becomes a distinct individual with defined authority, not to require much of patronage from the party chief or the patronizing support of the cabinet under him or her.
The present turning point of our national politics may embrace the best arrangements in better governed countries, like the US, Britain, Germany, Japan and France, in a workable package and should avoid innovative new ideas, which might eventually require perfecting through experimentations and subsequent alterations, upon inter-party conflicts.
The reform measures that are being proposed and discussed suggest that one thing is sure to happen with us if we introduce the system of fixed two terms for a person to hold the office of the prime minister. We will never get a long ruling Mahathir Muhammad or Lee Kwan Yew- a long visible someone in the top executive office like any of these two men who pulled up Malaysia and Singapore from obscurity to global prominence, from poverty to affluence, by engaging their heightened political vision and maturity, earned through doing the same job over and over again.
Another thing is also sure to occur to us. There will be a steady succession of leaders in the top offices-sometimes the changes will be like transition from Clinton to George Bush-from superiority to a massacre, and sometimes it may be like from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin --from drunkenness and massacre to sanity and reconstruction.
However, a steady change is better than a stumbling stagnation when no change could mean having to live with the same dullness or with the prospect of repeat of the old stories of massive corruptions or no big prospect in sight. Here the probability factor is surely important.
Bangladesh politics is manifestly passing through a major turning point. The systemic changes in the party apparatus reportedly being contemplated by the major two political parties go much beyond the concept of the so-called 'minus two' theory- a widely spread rumour suggesting untold moves for replacing the two lady party chiefs, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and AL President Sheikh Hasina.
Ideally, the reforms in the major two parties being considered by their reformist leaders are their respective moves to improve the party management and to open up scope for a steady improvement of quality of party and national leadership. But when one mentions about the so-called 'minus two' theory in explaining the objectives of the moves, it smacks of a filthy conspiracy against the two ladies.
This foul smell fuels the apprehension that these prominent two might go for a showdown in self-defense with the reformists. An unabated emphasis on the so-called theory may incite these two tough ladies having significant charisma and the arrogance of purpose for a strong display of their individual support base among the masses. They may be just waiting for an opportune time for the show of strength. If they do so either collectively or individually, events following October 28, 2006, may revive in another form. Its fierceness may vary but it will linger.
Generally, Bangladeshis sympathise with the opposition to the establishment. Historically, they have done so. That's why no significant political movement in this region-prior to and after independence-waned out without reaching the crescendo. While the fierceness of a movement varied from time to time, its cause did never die out until its objective was attained. In the apparent volatility of Bangladeshi character, there is also a latent tendency in him or her to go with the seemingly oppressed. They also go with the arch populists who can effectively appeal to their human weaknesses, for which they have been frequently cheated.
It is thus essential that the proposed political party reforms be carried out with the consent of the two leaders, or it should be at least sufficiently apparent to the masses that the two ladies are not being unnecessarily victimized or consigned to obscurity through any conspiracy. One may recall that one-time Congress President Moulana Azad of this sub-continent could not sell in independent India the idea of Pandit Nehru being primarily responsible for the partition of the sub-continent and that Ayub Khan could not sell the idea of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman having conspired sometime in the early 1960s in Agartola to break up Pakistan.
The publics need to be told and convinced that the reforms are intended for a steady improvement of national leadership through a process of smooth political party leadership changes. As democracy is ruling with consent of the masses, the process of political party leadership changes should be brought about on appealing extensively to their good senses. The reformists must also convince themselves that the broad publics are satisfied with their reform proposals prior to putting those into effect.
For the contemplated reforms to be acceptable to the board masses, their contents, approaches and policy measures should be justifiable in public eye. In other words, the proposed reforms must provide their own justifications for policy changes to appear rational. Any discriminatory provision for entry into party constitution as a reform measure, which would provide rules variously to safeguard or segregate individuals holding different party posts from the top to influential senior levels, might annoy the masses and propel them into inventing a foul play. Provisions like party chairperson or president being barred from holding the party top post for more than two terms, as being discussed, would appear discriminatory to the masses unless it is so provided that other important party office bearers, like vice-chairpersons or vice-presidents, general secretary, joint secretaries and other secretaries, cannot hold the same offices for more than the same number of terms or for more than a period equivalent to the length of such terms.
Consistency of the reform proposals would substantiate any claim that these are not person-specific and not intended to unnecessarily dwarf or knock out any specific person from a party position. Uniform conditions about the terms of office that a person would be permitted to hold by a reformed party constitution can be defended by asserting that these would provide the opportunity for upward mobility of able political leaders across the party structure.
A reformed party constitution should also provide that all the important party posts would be filled up through intra-party elections, participated by party councillors. The provision would eliminate non-charismatic, incompetent leaders from party positions and make room for better ones to rise up and join senior party ranks.
Similarly, there should be a provision for choosing party office bearers down to the upazila level through elections. The tenure of each term for holding office should be clearly spelt out. The Election Commission (EC) may, through a rule or law, require every party registered with it to submit the list of all elected leaders with their designations, academic qualifications and vocations within two months of the expiry of the stipulated term. There may be a provision in the EC's rule or law stating that any default in this regard will result in the cancellation of the party registration and disqualify it for participation in the subsequent national elections at any level unless a natural disaster of a cataclysmic proportion or a war has prevented the party from holding the due party elections.
For the purpose of symmetry among political parties, which is essential for avoiding future inter-party conflicts on the length of a term of office of their office-bearers, all political parties may be required to stipulate it in their constitutions and its length should be identical. It would not only ensure equality of office bearers of all parties in the eye of the law, but also exclude the possibility of some parties' chiefs being or having the prospect of being the prime minister of the country for longer periods, which might at some stage generate inter-party conflicts.
The best arrangement, which could exclude the necessity for the EC to have a rule for ensuring all those, noted above, would be a constitutional provision prohibiting the holding of the office of the prime minister and that of the president by the same persons for more than two terms. It would have precluded intra-party manipulations by influential charismatic leaders and tamed their passion for holding senior party positions for an indefinite and long period.
The reported thinking in some quarters of the AL about having provisions in their party constitution for one set of leaders to hold party offices and another set to form the government on winning a general election seems to be ignoring the influence of quality of leadership in the matter of discipline within party ranks. Whoever scales to the top of a party either through election or party choice invariably commands the loyalty of the party leaders and workers. In the parliamentary form of government, as ours, this loyalty element is highly important for cohesiveness and stability of the government. None other than the party chief can normally enjoy the kind of undisputed loyalty of the party leaders to ensure that cohesiveness and stability of a parliamentary type of government where the prime minister is the presiding cabinet minister, the mighty first among equals for the purpose of working out consensus through discussions in cabinet meetings and for putting up searching over-head questions on serious issues to a minister or a group of ministers, which no one or more equal ministers will dare to ask a colleague in apprehension of possible conflicts and subsequent rivalry.
The said thinking could be, however, proper and workable in the presidential form of government, under which once the party-nominated presidential candidate has won and been declared elected, he or she immediately becomes a distinct individual with defined authority, not to require much of patronage from the party chief or the patronizing support of the cabinet under him or her.
The present turning point of our national politics may embrace the best arrangements in better governed countries, like the US, Britain, Germany, Japan and France, in a workable package and should avoid innovative new ideas, which might eventually require perfecting through experimentations and subsequent alterations, upon inter-party conflicts.
The reform measures that are being proposed and discussed suggest that one thing is sure to happen with us if we introduce the system of fixed two terms for a person to hold the office of the prime minister. We will never get a long ruling Mahathir Muhammad or Lee Kwan Yew- a long visible someone in the top executive office like any of these two men who pulled up Malaysia and Singapore from obscurity to global prominence, from poverty to affluence, by engaging their heightened political vision and maturity, earned through doing the same job over and over again.
Another thing is also sure to occur to us. There will be a steady succession of leaders in the top offices-sometimes the changes will be like transition from Clinton to George Bush-from superiority to a massacre, and sometimes it may be like from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin --from drunkenness and massacre to sanity and reconstruction.
However, a steady change is better than a stumbling stagnation when no change could mean having to live with the same dullness or with the prospect of repeat of the old stories of massive corruptions or no big prospect in sight. Here the probability factor is surely important.