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Costs of Constitutionality

Beneath The Surface

by Abdul Bayes
Bangladesh, supoo^ la going to witness a general election on the 15th February 1996 - *n election, perhaps, unprecedented In the history of this country. Unprecedented In the sense that, among the participants in this race, only the ruling BNP can be considered a political party worth the significance and the rest, obviously, not so much in the eyes of the public or. so to say. voters. Allegedly. by virtue of party strength alone the upcoming election would resemble a one party election. Even if 100 per cent of those in favour flock to the polling booths and thus elect a parliament. that parliament would represent only a third of the population. One can. perhaps, safely assume that the upcoming parliament (and hence the government) could at best claim the verdict of 30-35 per cent of the total population and with the ruling party heading for a landslide victory, the country Is seemingly poised to experience a "hanged" parliament as opposed to a "hung" parliament arising from the 1990 election.
And all of this is going to happen in the name of a constitutional continuity and a democracy — where the constitution is only seen by the words and not by the spirit it upholds. The present government seems bent upon holding an election duly prescribed by our constitution. If the election cannot be held in due course, so argue the proponents of the election. Bangladesh's democracy
could be at stake. I shall not attempt to air the views of the opposition on this score for reasons of space constraint but would like to examine the implications surrounding the upcoming polls.
The concern of the present government for the constitutional continuity and hence for democracy should lie viewed positively and seriously. After all. the constitution is the touch-stone of our democracy, governance, human rights etc and hence any attempt to subvert it should never be welcome. The most pertinent question is are all that is availed through constitutional means necessarily acceptable to people in general? Let us take a few examples. The shift in the nature of government from a a multi-party democracy to one-party rule during Awami League regime was in consort. with constitutional provisions but was that acceptable to the public? Largely not. President Zia's or General Ershad s coming to power could hardly match the constitutional provisions which in due course had to be constitutionalised. No question of people's acceptability ariaed. or bothered about. The power of Justice Sahabuddin s caretaker government had to be legalised through, amendments io the constitution. And last but not the least, despite the fact
that a Presidential form of government is not unconstitutional. the present ruling party agreed to bring the 12th amendment first to show respect to people's choice for parliamentary system of government. Three major political parties In Bangladesh viz. BNP. Awami League and JP thus are observed to have changed stances from time to time, probably to show respect to peoples demand, although
those stances had always been in the line of constitutional provisions.
The upcoming general election, like-wise. Is going to be significantly constitutional but very insignificantly democratic In the absence of partlcipauon of major political parties who seemingly represent over two-thirds of the total voters (in the light of votes cast in their turnout in earlier polls). Not digging deep into the rationale of such an election., let us now concentrate on some of the costs of the upcoming election and the benefits there
upon.
The monetary cost of the on going election project is reported to be around Tk 300 crores This money is likely to be spent for much of the ordeals although not lor much of the audience. The cost might hike substantially In the event of another election In the near future as could be sensed from PM's nationwide speech recently It remains to be seen as to how could the spending be
Justified for an election with very little democratic flavour. a?he opposition en masse vowed to sabotage the election In the face of govern ment's firm commitment to K along with it. This means id as could be in evidence from the recent happenings all over the country) that a lot of Ilves and property have to be sacrificed to reach the goal of the either party. This should be weighed against the loss of property so far. the loss of man-days due to hartals and the loss of investors' confidence In
Bangladesh.
Needless to mention, the opposition parties promised to continue their anti-elec-' tlon and anti-government movements even after the 15th February. A recognition of this threat might lead us to a reign of terror and horror in the days to come. En pas sant. it may be mentioned here that the opposition's vow to deter the voters from exercising heir rights to franchise does not seem to fit democratic norms; either. What they should do. at best, is to convince people not to participate in such "farcical" election, but leaving the Judgement to the citizens themselves.
The various reform measures innunciated by the present government have already been stalled due to political uncertainty. A deepening of the crisis would only add fear to the uncertainty as a result of which the economy might get further shocks. A government that boasts of being the ' architect" of these reforms cannot be expected to be the silent spectator of their gradual demise. It may be noted here that the donors are reported to have already aired their annoyance at the slow pace of reforms. The macro-stability is already threatened, political unrest is causing exports to dwindle and the law and order situation has already been diving
to its worst level All these episodes have begun to gripe the economy and peaceful civic life of Bangladesh.
As told earlier. Id the case a parliament is voted to. the ruling party would undeniably emerge as the lone lion there to roar with a capacity of over 200 seats. A further filip would be provided to their strength by the so called opposition in the parliament whose track record of parliamentary parleys is almost nil That fertile situation might tempt the majority BNP to go back to a presidential form of government, enact laws ana regulations allegedly considered "black." heighten some cosy wishes of the members of the ruling party and. finally, rule like rulers unchallenged. The country, therefore, appears to stand with a bright chance of witnessing a bleak scenario in the aftermath of the gen-.eral election of the 15th
February.
The nation is. thus, set to be back to the origin — an origin from where its people shed blood to crawl forward. A commitment to uphold the constitution, the only benefit against such huge costs, may be a Welcome move but one should not lose sight of the fact that the constitution is for the people and not otherwise. A government that stepped into power through the most glorious electoral process in 1990. is sadly geared to end up with an electoral event to be seriously condemned. Thus the government entered but thus it is not going —that is the discomfort to live with.