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Analysis of RPO: Does the law ensure governance in candidate selection?

Md. Abdul Alim
BEFORE the 9'1’ parliamentary election, the key electoral legal framework of Bangladesh, the Representation of People Order, 1972 (RPO) was revised and many initiatives were included in the law. One of the initiatives was to bring transparency in selection of candidates by the political parties. To address the issue, two provisions were made. The first provision (Article 90B(b)(iv) of the P.O. No. 42/20081 states that a political party has "to finalise nomination of candidate by central parliamentary board of the party from the panels prepared by the members of the ward, union, thana, upazila or district committee ... of concerned constituency." The scond provision (Article 12(1) (j)[ says that a person is disqualified (not applicable for independent candidate) for election if he has not been a member of a registered party for three years.
Some objectives behind the two provisions are: (i) to ensure intra-party democracy in candidate selection, (ii) to stop selling of nomination by the parties or party leaders, (ill) to prevent non-politicians such as civil servants, army officials from becoming a candidate just after retirement, (iv) to prevent non-political businessman from becoming a candidate from a political party, and (v) to stop nomination of politicians switching from other parties.
The first provision was mandatory in the 9'" parliamentary election and the second has now become
mandatory as parties have already completed 3 years after getting registration with Election Commission (EC). Did the parties follow the first provision in the 9* parliamentary election? About Awami League's nomination Transparency International Bangladesh's (TIB) study on Local Participation and Expectations in the Nomination Process of the National Elections observed that "in most of the constituencies nominations were made from the recommended panel in the 9'h parliamentary election. Nevertheless, in some constituencies there was little reflection of the grassroots opinion as it was ignored and nomination was not given from the proposed panel." About BNP’s nomination, the study found that "in most cases their (local BNP leaders) opinion was hardly reflected in the final nomination." The study also found that in only 52% cases local leaders of the parties participate in candidate nomination process.
Both the above-mentioned provisions were made during the time of CTG and later, when the law was passed in the parliament in 2009, an amendment was made with the Article 90B(b)(iv). If we analyse those two provisions, we can identify the following shortcomings.
• The registration criterion [Article 90B(l)(a)(iii)J does not mention that the parties have to form committees at union/ward level, but the nomination criterion (Article 90B(b)(iv)| makes it mandatory to collect feedback from the ward/ union committees along with district and thana/upazila committees. This is contradictory as there is no provision to form union/ward committees. How do parties receive
feedback from those committees?
A party is allowed to get registration if it establishes "district offices in at least in one-third administrative districts, and at least one hundred upazilas or metropolitan thanas.” So a party need not establish offices at all districts and thanas/upazilas. If there is no office/committee in a specific district/thana/upazila, who will recommend the panel for nomination? In this case, there is no way to violate the RPO provision. Article 12( 1 )(j) of the RPO clearly says that a candidate nominated by a registered party must have membership for three years. The question is how can EC understand who is a member of AL and who is a member of BNP? The RPO does not have any provision that the parties have to submit and/or update their membership base to EC time to time. As a result, there is scope by the parties to nominate someone (showing back date), who has not been a member of the party for three years, as a candidate.
After revising the law in 2009, parties may only collect list of panel from the grass-root committees, but central parliamentary board is not bound to select candidates from this list. As a result, we are assuming that the previous practice of nominating candidates will back again and the party high-ups will enjoy all power to nominate candidates. So, there may be corruption and lack of intra-party democracy in candidate selection. In the case of Simin Hossain Rimi, AL didn't collect any suggestions from grassroot committees and the decision was taken by the party high-ups.
Suggestions: (i) RPO has to make a provision that the parties have to establish membership database, update it on a regular basis and submit it to EC once a year. The concerned membership base could be stored in the respective local offices of EC; (ii) the nomination provision of the RPO [Article 90B(b) (iv)] could be revised to ensure meaningful intra-party democracy, e.g. parties could hold council for nomination of candidates. The German Law on Political Parties requires that "the nomination of candidates for election to all levels of government must be by secret ballot.." Article 21 of the law provides that there are three ways that a party can nominate a candidate, i.e. through an assembly of party members, or a special assembly or a general assembly of party representatives; (iii) the time between the declaration of election schedule and finalisation of nomination is very limited, and it is impossible to verify information provided by the candidates. The timeframe could be extended and the parties could be told to submit a potential list of candidates six months before the election so that EC can verify information about the candidates; (iv) there are lots of NGOs/CSOs working in the field of election. The RPO should make a provision to include them to oversee nomination by the parties; and (v) another provision could be made that a candidate nominated by a political party has to submit the list of panel prepared by grass-root committees along with the nomination submitted to EC. The writer is a former head of election project, UNDP Bangladesh.
E-mail: alim3492@yahoo.com