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Private funding behind political degeneration

Says Rehman Sobhan at BEA conference

Staff Correspondent
A major cause for the degeneration of Bangladesh's political culture is the need for mobilising private funds to finance parties and electoralactivities, Prof Rehman Sobhan said yesterday.
The pursuit of private finance for underwriting party activities makes both political parties and leaders hostages to special interest groups, the chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue told the 15th biennial conference of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA) that took off at Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh in the city yesterday.
Much of the corruption and crime in decision-making originates in the need to do favours to such
political financiers, added Prof Sobhan.
In a paper titled ’Challenging Bangladesh's Crisis of Governance: An agenda for a Just Society' that he presented at the conference, the CPD chief said a peculiar symbiosis now binds politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats together in a collusive relationship, which has infected the entire system of govern an cc.
Such a system of political financing, by its nature, remains devoid of transparency, he added.
BEA President Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad presided over the session. The theme of this conference is 'Bangladesh in the 21 st Century: The Political Economy Perspectives'.
Prof Sobhan observed, after 13
years of democratic renewal, where three elected governments and two political alliances have held office, Bangladesh's political institutions arc increasingly becoming dysfunctional.
He said the Bangladesh polity would be grounded in a working democracy underwritten by the hunger for democracy of its citizens, adding today few people would have reason to feel optimistic about the state of democratic governance.
The culture of intolerance which permeates Bangladesh's polity holds the nation hostage to a confrontational style of politics which is making the democratic process unworkable, Rehman Sobhan added.
Resorting to arbitrary and often extra-judicial forms of law enforcement through Operation Clean Heart and Rapid Action Battalion may lead to a temporary abeyance of crime but (heir sustainability is questionable, because these agencies operate outside the institutional structures ofthe state, he said.
Nor do they address the source of the problem which lies in the patronisation of criminals in the service of party politics, the chief of the country's leading independent think-tank observed.