***The election manifesto is the fundamental policy guideline of the AL-led government, which was endorsed massively by the people -- the owners of the Republic -- on December 29, 2008. How did the MPs belonging to the grand alliance ignore that in making local government laws?***

POLITICAL gangsterism is a concept I have borrowed from Hadiz. The widely known decentralisation scholar Vedi R. Hadiz is a professor at the National University of Singapore. He has done intensive research on the politics, governance and decentralisation of his own country -- Indonesia — in the 1990s and 2000s, using the concept to characterise the behaviour of the political actors of Indonesia.

With the collapse of Soeharto, many of the criminal and corrupts politicians who once collaborated with the authoritarian regime (1966-98) joined, and were rehabilitated by, the post-Soeharto democratic

regimes. This implantation of authoritarian-lieutenants to the democratic regimes, particularly to that under President Megawatti Soekarnoputri, is termed as "political gangsterism" by Hadiz.

This write-up intends to analyse the imprudent action of our central political actors regarding the Upazila Parishad (UP) Law legislated in the parliament in 2009. The Parliament enacted UP law by amending the previously passed Act of 1998. The law was passed in clear contravention of Article 7(2) of the constitution.

The Constitution of Bangladesh -- the supreme law of the land — declares that all powers in the Republic belong to the people, and the exercise of such power "shall be effected only under, and by the authority of

this Constitution (Article 7(1)}.” The words "only under" and "by the authority" deserve mention.

It further says that if any law is inconsistent with the Constitution the law shall be void to the extent of the inconsistency with Article 7(2). The Bangladesh Constitution thus declares its supremacy over everything and anything else.

Let us shed some light on how the Constitution vests "authority" on both the central and the local political actors. Article 65(1) of the Constitution has vested members of the Parliament (MPs) with the power to legislate law for the land. The MPs, therefore, are not empowered "under" this constitution to get into local development activities.

Executing such activity, on the contrary, is vested with the local government in every administrative unit, composed of the persons elected in accordance with the law (Article 59(1)}. Furthermore, Article 59(2) very emphatically defines their jobs as " (c) the preparation and implementation of the plan relating to public services and economic development." So the constitution does not "authorise" the Parliament to frame any law that engages the MPs in local development.

Going against this constitutional provision the Parliament enacted the UP law, empowering the MPs to advise the parishad with a binding implication for the latter (Article 25(3)}. The parishad is also obliged to take the MP's advice in preparing upazila development plan (Article 42).

The two specific articles of the UP Act not only undermine the political authority of the parishad but also violate the fundamental characteristics of local government, and circumvent the constitution as well. Furthermore, it also disregards the Supreme Court's verdict.

The Supreme Court, in its previous verdict in 1992 in the case known as Kudrat-e-Elahi Panir vs Bangladesh, observed that "the Parliament is not free to legislate law ignoring Articles 59 and 60 of the Constitution (44DLR (AD) (1992). Thus, we can confidently conclude that the law passed in the Parliament ignores the court verdict.

We should analyse the MPs' perspectives as well. The MPs argue that they have a

certain mandate from their constituents, and non-compliance will affect their chance of re-election. They also argue that MPs' involvement in development activities is evident in many other countries -- which is a very self-serving argument and nothing but a travesty.

British MPs, having offices in their respective constituencies, deal with things such as pension, insurance and the like, but not with matters devolved to the County. Just to recall, this column analysed the election results of 2001 and 2008 in one constituency. That analysis shows that getting involved in local development activity is not a guarantee of getting re-elected (The Daily Star, August 3, 2009), there are many other important factors related to political economy.

The people do not expect such actions and violation of the law from a party that led the Liberation War and framed the Constitution. The people remember the commitment made by the Awami League (AL) that they would strengthen local government if voted to power (Section 6, the Charter of Change — election manifesto 2008).

The election manifesto is the fundamental policy guideline of the AL-led government, which was endorsed massively by the people — the owners of the Republic -- on December 29, 2008. How did the MPs belonging to the grand alliance ignore that in making local government laws?

Surprisingly, the Parliament passed other laws relating to municipalities and city corporations, which are free from such controls. Politicians at the centre have always used local government institutions since their formation in the late 19th century. This kind of self-serving action in relation to local/national power relations can only be called "political hypocrisy," if not "political gangsterism" as mentioned by Hadiz.

May we appeal to the popular democratic government to repair the damage by nullifying the amendments made in 2009 in these two particular articles (Article 25(3) and Article 42)}of the UP Act 1998.

Kartick Mandal is a local government activist.

E-mail: mandal1964@gmail.com.