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CTG system: Revisiting the issue

MOZAMMEL H. KHAN.
IT seems our current opposition politicians and many political analysts are suffering from fading memories of the evolution and functioning of our Caretaker Government (CTG) system over the last few elections. As if businesses were as usual and the current government all on a sudden removed the provision of CTG from the constitution. This was not to attest that the government did the right thing. Referring to the 15 th amendment, I wrote a piece entitled, "A self-defeating amendment” (DS, July 26, 2011) in which it was observed: "The prime minister's insistence that the repeal was necessary after the Supreme Court struck down the 13th Amendment to the constitution as illegal is not tenable". However, keeping aside the pretext of the SC verdict, it would be unfair to judge the action of the government ignoring the inherent reasons or context that led the ruling party to go through the much-controversial amendment that gave to rise to the current political stalemate.
Just to refresh the memory, the CTG system was introduced in the Constitution as a result of an all-out movement spearheaded by AL itself in 1996 in the aftermath of the Magura bye-election. The first election under the newly enacted constitutional provision was conducted by Justice M. Habibur Rahman. He had to work under a partisan president and unfortunately did not have a smooth sailing in his tenure. His great wisdom saved the day and the election was by and large fair.
Likewise, the election of 1991 under Justice Shahbuddin Ahmed was equally credible despite the stewardship of Justice Rouf as CEC, a highly partisan individual.
There was, however, no broad consensus among our citizens in attributing the caretaker administration under Justice Latifur Rahman with the similar connotation of impartiality and neutrality. Although BNP won that election, it probably took careful note from the functioning of the CTG under Justice Latifur Rahman and did not want to leave the appointment of chief of the CTG to natural progression and amended the constitution to induct one of their own men as the chief CTG. So, the current opposition leader's statement that "you did not accept Justice Hasan, we will not accept you", does not hold ground since Justice Hasan was not a candidate of natural progression of the CTG. He was the result of a constitutional manipulation.
What happened at the end was the manifestation of evil designs of the then PM, blatantly violating, not one but three provisions of the constitution, to impose her handpicked President Dr. lajuddin to self-assume the position of the Chief Adviser. In fact, the political alliance that opposed his assumption of CA displayed their statesmanship by not rejecting him outright; instead they gave him the opportunity to prove his neutrality in creating a level playing field for the participants of the ensuing election. Contrary to their expectations, he colluded to implement the blue print of his mentor in the infamous, 'Hawa Bhaban'.
The aggrieved political leaders filed a writ petition in the superior court challenging the constitutional legality of lajuddin's assumption of the office of the CTG, a conventional avenue in any Republic where rule of law and constitution prevail. After due hearings, when the judges were about to deliver their ruling, the Attorney General, personally delivered an order on a plain paper from the Chief Justice staying the delivery of ruling, an unprecedented phenomenon in the country's legal chronicle. So, the essence of the CTG system was wrecked by lajuddin-led CTG at the behest of nobody else but the current leader of the opposition herself.
To keep history in perspective, it must be stressed that in January 2007, the armed forces of the nation rose to the occasion and prevented the nation from falling in an irreversible catastrophe. The CTG under Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed did a superb job of conducting, with the help of a truly independent and impartial Election Commission, a free and fair election.
Referring back to the PM’s address to the nation (excepting for the damaging DMP order) proposing an all-party interim government, given the context as outlined above, it could be attributed as positive, ground breaking and constructive. The BNP in particular does not have any high moral ground to bypass it; rather it must respond positively to evolve a middle ground. As opposed to the dark situation prevailed during Hawa Bahban-dictated lajuddin government, the current situation is quite reassuring in multiple ways. Firstly, the EC for the first time has been constituted in consultations with all the major stakeholders. Its members have conducted five thousand or so elections with utmost neutrality and fairness. The EC might not have been immune from criticisms, but probably not for partisan reasons. Secondly, no CEC ever appointed by any AL governments had to leave in disgrace and the current one is not expected to be any different. Thirdly, every voter has a national ID card and the voter list does not contain 12 million or so fake voters. Fourthly, excepting the Premiership, there is a strong likelihood that the main opposition might bargain for a couple of important ministerial portfolios that could be strong deterrent for any potential fixing of the election results. Lastly, given the free print and electronic media in the country, bulk of which are not so sympathetic to the government, it would be impossible to hold a Magura or a Dhaka-10 type of elections.
Historically, it might have been true that no fair election took place under a partisan government. But here again, AL was never been a part of that history. The writer is the Convenor of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.