The Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a report on March 18 said the present Bangladesh parliament lacks a genuine opposition party to hold the executive branch accountable to the people. TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman, while releasing his organisation's findings on the ninth parliament, said, "There is no opposition in the parliament in a real sense. There is an opposition party in alphabetical meaning but not in real sense. Indeed, it is a part of the government".
Since the beginning of 2014, a series of political turmoil paralysed the country and hundreds died in violent clashes between rival political factions. Volatility and anarchy were galore everywhere in the country, be it in the political field or in the economic sector or within the administration or in the social arena. The basic fabric of the society was shaken. Top opposition leaders, political workers and general people were arrested. Responsibility for the crisis lay squarely with the Prime Minister, who is also the chief of the Awami League. The PM seems to be determined to cling to power after the general elections in January and to neutralise her opponents by any means. In 2011, she scrapped a constitutional provision for the governing party to hand over power to a neutral caretaker government three months before elections take place. Instead, the PM set up an 'all-party' government she herself presided over.
Before the election of January 05, 2014 , there were many surveys conducted by a leading newspaper that revealed around 90 per cent of the people wanted the parliamentary election to be held under a non-party caretaker government. Yet the election was held under the ruling party government. But the government disregarded the views of the overwhelming majority of the people, civil society and legal experts.
The TIB's recent report focused on the journey of the incumbent parliament without any opposition which does not even know its sustainability whether the 10th parliament would be able to fulfill the expectations of the people.
The TIB parliamentary watch report revealed that the quorum crisis during the ninth parliament caused the country a loss of time worth over Tk 1,040 million where a total of 222 hours and 36 minutes were wasted during the 19 sessions of the ninth parliament from 2009 to 2013. This estimate showed that around Tk 78,000 is spent for every minute when the parliament is in session.
It showed that only 8.2 per cent time, meaning 109 hours and 44 minutes, was spent for enacting laws during the ninth parliament. According to the report, a number of important laws were passed within three to four minutes during the last parliament that was dissolved on January 24. So this is a very unfortunate situation for our country's politics or economic situation.
The police in Bangladesh have allegedly been acting as political cadres of the governing party. They are often accused of behaving in an apparent discriminate way and applying the law with utmost partiality. The government party workers and leaders appear to be above the law whereas the opposition activists and leaders seem to be the victims and targets of all actions and atrocities of the police force. This is totally against the principle of non-discrimination ensured by Article 28(1) of the Constitution. The recent attitudes, behaviour and actions of the police force clearly suggest that the primary duty of the police has apparently changed in Bangladesh.
In the present time, the recent upazila elections have adequately shown what is really going on in Bangladesh. The Election Commissioner talked about the recent election but his satisfaction over the polls is not borne out by the reports in the media that revealed incidents of blatant violation of electoral rules in a fairly large number of polling centres. This is very clear that the Election Commissioner failed to look at the whole picture while making rather sweeping assessment. On the other hand, the claim of the prime minister's political adviser that this phase of election passed more peacefully than the earlier ones is clearly an overstatement.
There are enough reasons for the TIB's fears about the accountability of the government in a situation where there is no real opposition party in the legislature. With economic progress the people hoped that the rule of law would help secure and safeguard democratic norms, but that's not happening in the present scenario of Bangladesh.
The writer is with the Department of Peace and
Conflict Studies, the University of Dhaka.
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