Treasury and Opposition in a parliamentary democracy

Former President Badrudozza Chowdhury asked his host on an exclusive TV talk show recently if he knew where the Jatiya Party ministers would sit in parliament. The host of course had no clue. Nor did anyone who watched the show except the only JP MP who made it to the cabinet as a full minister. This JP minister said that he saw nothing unusual about a political party being a part of the government as well as the opposition!
There are a few things that are the same everywhere in a parliamentary democracy. One is that the ruling party, called the members of the Treasury Bench, and the Opposition sit separately in parliament and the latter acts as "the watchdog" on the actions of the government. In his eagerness to become a minister at any cost, this JP minister in the Awami League (AL) government was in no mood to acknowledge the absurdity in his statement.
In the British Parliament, the Treasury Bench and the Opposition sit opposite each other. In the Bangladesh Parliament, the Treasury Bench members sit in one part of the House and the Opposition in another part. Independent and members of other political parties also sit separately from both the Treasury Bench and the Opposition. When the JP minister explained to the media about his party being both in government and the opposition, he made it sound so simple. He said as a Minister of the Government, he would have no problem defending the government when it does good acts. When he felt the government was not acting in a good manner, he would have no problem criticising, like he had two hats that he would be able to change at will as he was the master of his fate. He must have forgotten parliamentary practices and, particularly, about the draconian Article 70 of the Bangladesh Constitution. Perhaps he was fooling himself or trying to fool the nation or both!
There are so many other problems and contradictions to this naive interpretation of one of the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy - what constitutes the government and the opposition - that one would be tempted to dismiss the idea as too dim-witted to deserve any attention. Nevertheless, our politicians such as this minister are turning our world into a bizarre one and since it is our lives with which they are playing, it should be our duty as conscientious citizens to stand up and explain the bizarreness and expose that their weird explanations palpably reflect that they speak and act with nothing but their narrow self-interest in mind.
When the JP minister said he saw no contradiction by remaining in the government and the Opposition, he, of course, was justifying to himself his craving to become a minister. His example of the Government of National Unity (GNU) of South Africa to justify his weird explanation was utterly untrue. The GNU was formed in South Africa in 1994 under an agreement between the ANC led by Nelson Mandela and the racist National Party where the two antagonists had concluded, first, that the hated apartheid system had to end, and second, that they had to compromise as neither party could defeat the other outright. The GNU, formed following the historic 1994 elections that the ANC had won with 62 per cent of the votes, comprised all parties that had won over 5 per cent of the votes including the National Party. National reconciliation was of the essence and the object was to draft a constitution for a post-apartheid South Africa.  Clearly, the present government in Bangladesh that came to office with 153 seats decided uncontested, with less than 10 per cent voters electing the remaining 147 seats and with 32 of the 44 registered parties, including the main opposition, not contesting, cannot be compared in any way except in a state of mental amnesia about the GNU.
Then, of course, there is the point that former President Badrudozza made about where a member of parliament like this JP minister would sit. Unless he, like it is possible in science fiction, can come with a clone to parliament and make him sit in the Opposition bench while he would sit with the Treasury, this is an explanation that even my three and a half years old granddaughter would refuse to accept. If I tried to explain this issue like the minister to her, she would simply turn to me and say "Nana, don't be silly." In fact, any sensible non-partisan person would dismiss the recent events and developments in our politics, including this JP minister's explanation that there is nothing wrong in a party being a part of the government and the Opposition as not only downright silly but also humiliating and dangerous for the country.
Already, unfortunately for this Minister, his arguments are breaking at the seams. A few others with whom he had been propagating this weird concept of a political party being a part of the government and the Opposition have not been given cabinet berths after apparently being promised they would be. These JP MPs are already grumbling having been left in the cold. In fact, this does not seem to be the end of the troubles facing this JP member and his two colleagues who have joined as junior ministers. More than 240 candidates, who withdrew their nomination papers when HM Ershad asked them to do so when he had decided not to participate in the elections, are also angry. Therefore the Minister and his two junior ministerial colleagues have not just earned the wrath and ridicule of the nation but also of the entire JP party they represent while the JP members who have become MPs have earned the wrath of the 240 who had withdrawn their nominations.
The way the JP chairman HM Ershad is acting these days or to put the matter in a better perspective, being allowed to by the government is making the current politics in the country not just weird but something that many Bangladeshis think can happen in countries that have not only no tradition of democracy but unaware of what really constitutes a democratic system.
An important leader of the left has said something that should raise serious questions about taking the JP to form a government based on legitimacy, morality and ethics. He said that in the movement for establishment of democracy leading to the downfall of HM Ershad in 1991, a decision had been taken among all the parties that included the BNP, the AL, and the Jamaat as well as the left parties that the JP would not be a part of any democratic movement in future. The way the ruling party has used the JP and HM Ershad in holding the elections and then forming the government has left an impression in the minds of the people what Sir Fazle Hasan Abed has said very recently, that this government is legal but not legitimate.
The writer is a retired                          career Ambassador. [email protected]