Two decades of the vicious cycle

UNFORTUNATELY, the ninth Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or parliament that has already completed two years, has failed to bring about any change in the culture of boycotting the parliamentary sessions. Both people and political parties know that without an effective opposition, parliament cannot function democratically. Yet, the nasty cycle of such boycott has been the tradition for the last two decades. In 1991, the then opposition party -- Awami League (AL) -- played a constructive role in the parliament initially but soon the differences in opinion were noticed. Later, it held the view that the then ruling party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was not interested in making the parliament effective. This led to efforts for mass mobilization and street confrontations for reforms. Finally, the opposition party and its allies began to walk out frequently from parliament; it boycotted it for a total of 300 days and finally resigned on December 28, 1994. A general election, held without participation of the major opposition parties, instigated the latter to reinvigorate their efforts for organising protests through strong street agitations and observance of hartals. Finally, the then BNP government had to quit power. As soon as the AL came to power through the general election held in 1996, the then opposition -- BNP -- considered the AL to be intolerant and began to stage walkouts and to boycott the parliament. Later in the general election of October 01, 2001, the AL suffered "an unprecedented debacle in its 53-year history". The AL rejected the election, on the ground of, what it alleged, being 'engineered' and continued to demand the resignation of the BNP-led government. Although it joined the parliament initially, it had largely boycotted it and gone for hartals and agitations against the government. The story of the eighth Parliament from 2001 to 2006, was, thus, nothing different. When the ninth Parliament went into session, the opposition party -- BNP -- joined it at the outset but later on, starting boycotting it, keeping alive the previous trend. People are perplexed by the non-existence of the opposition party in parliament for numerous days. No meaningful efforts have yet been made by the main ruling party -- AL -- to ensure the participation of the opposition in parliament. There is now a storm of debates over abnormal price-hike of essentials, law and order situation, electricity crisis and, of late, the share market debacle. In parliament, the opposition party should act firmly on the current issues that concern the people most. They should raise protests before any bill, which is, if they consider to be, against the interest of the mass people, is passed. The opposition legislators should always bear in mind that they are also the representatives of the countrymen who want all their 'justified' demands to be met and all 'unfair' practices, to end. The Opposition's main role is to question the activities of the government of the day and hold it accountable to the public. In a civilised society, the elected members of the parliament are considered to be men of dignity and self-respect, having a clean conscience. Unfortunately, ours is a society where the politicians are considered to be the very opposite. They do not respect themselves, they do not respect their voters, and they do not respect the core principle of a parliamentary system. At times, the situation is so messy that it becomes difficult to determine who is in the opposition and who is in the ruling party. Extreme intolerance dominates our politics and this may lead to a disaster. The political parties continue to ignore one another, just for the sake of ignoring. There is practically no example of the two parties cooperating on issues of consequence. The members of the opposition party literally do not pay any heed to the demand of the people to attend the sessions of the parliament. Both the parties have maintained this negative trend, in turn, in parliament during their respective tenure as the opposition. However, the members of the parliament never forget to avail themselves the benefits that are offered to them by the state. A national consensus is a must for development of the country. But the political parties do unfortunately hold different viewpoints in this regard. Conflicts on fundamental issues, different interpretations of history and the role of personalities are the major impediments here. Any offer of dialogue is considered as a simple narrow partisan tactics to ride onto to power and to consolidate position in the political battlefield. A rational behavior from the opposition party is essential and they should understand that the ruling party is elected for five years for doing their job. If they can not keep their commitments, they may not be elected by the people, again. That is precisely the reason why the opposition party should participate in the JS session in order to ventilate their views in a logical manner on broader issues of national development, instead of boycotting it. But the vicious cycle of the culture -- boycotting the parliament -- over the last two decades has been taking the country backward. The key to political change certainly lies in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. It is time for them to move forward to break this vicious cycle in the greater interest of the country. (The writer can be reached at e-mail: shafiq@iidfc.com)