The move has, more or less, been welcomed by the conscientious people, prominent politicians and the media. Barrister Moudud Ahmed of BNP and Suranjeet Sen Gupta of AL have welcomed the move "conveniently forgetting that this move is testimony to their failures as politicians."

Welcoming the move, The Bangladesh Observer in its editorial on March 22 wrote: "It is highly satisfying to see that the ubiquitous civil society has at last taken an initiative to bring its isolated members under an umbrella. It formed on Monday a citizens' group under the title 'Citizens' Group for a Vision for Bangladesh'. The objective of forming such a group is clear from the title."

The Daily Star in its editorial on March 23 wrote: "We welcome the floating of a Citizens' Group with eminent civil society members with a view to developing a mid-term vision of progress for Bangladesh and launching a campaign for clean, honest and competent candidates in the next general election which are intertwined agenda" The group is to put pressure on major political parties to field good candidates in the first place. Moreover, it will try and raise the consciousness level of people so that they demand to know all about the candidates and no undesirable elements can sneak through the system."

Prothom Alo in its editorial on March 23 wrote that the issue that figured most in the dialogue on March 20 was that for freeing the country from maladministration; there was the need to nominate honest, competent and self-righteous candidates and create awareness among people for electing such candidates for forming a really accountable government.

Grameen Bank-famed professor Muhammad Yunus, also a member of the citizens' group, presented his formula for nominating honest candidates for the general election. The formula includes, among others, (i) launching immediately a citizens' movement in the name of "honest candidate movement" or "competent candidate movement"; (ii) forming a governing committee and an executive body for conducting day-to-day affairs of the movement;(iii) forming a central nomination committee which will declare in one month a panel of candidates (of the movement) comprising at least one man and one woman for every constituency; (iv) increasing gradually the number of candidates and making their autobiography public; (v) campaigning by the candidates for ensuring the defeat of the corrupt and incompetent candidates of the political parties, rather than campaigning for themselves; (vi) withdrawing their candidature if political parties nominate competent candidates; and (vii) contesting in the election in a constituency where the political parties fail to nominate competent candidates by only one candidate (of the movement) who gets symbol from the Election Commission (EC)and the other three candidates initially nominated (by the movement) will support him/her.

Attaining success will not be an easy task. In other words, the citizens' group will have to work with certain limitations.

First, we have a divided civil society. The political parties, particularly the major political parties, take the advantage of this division. It is said that one of the main casualties of Bangladeshi politics is the faith that the people had in the intellectuals and the leaders of the civil society. The belligerence of the two major political parties -- the BNP and the AL -- has spilled over to all sections of our society whereby consensus on any issue, however important, is almost impossible.

Second, the names that feature in the citizens' group have intellectual height and social esteem, but they lack political experience and nuisance value of the corrupt politicians.

Third, how will the citizens' movement identify the dishonest and incompetent candidates of the political parties? Even the state machinery does not maintain database on the political parties and the politicians. This is primarily because of the fact that the existing law has not made it mandatory for the political parties to get registered with the EC. Mandatory registration could compel the political parties to submit various information and documents including annual audited reports showing their incomes and expenditure. Even the BNP and the AL have not got registered with the EC to avoid accountability.

Fourth, the members of the civil society have little or no interaction with the majority voters living in the rural areas. Voters in the rural areas, excepting a few, have little or no access to the print or electronic media. This is the case also with the urban poor and ultra-poor. More importantly, they are not conscious of the value of their votes. Many of them do not bother to sell their votes for petty gains in cash or kind. So, how the civil society in general and the members of the citizens' group in particular will reach them?

Fifth, by nominating its symbolic candidates the citizens' movement will pressurise the political parties to nominate clean and competent candidates for general election. If the political parties fail to nominate such candidates, the citizens' movement will nominate its own candidates in the constituencies concerned. The successful operation of the citizens' movement will require an elaborate organisational structure and a huge fund. How will the fund be arranged? Will the citizens' group appeal to the people for donating money to the fund? There is a risk involved in this. If the people do not respond to the appeal, this may mean that they have no support for the movement.

Last but not the least, it is not unlikely that those who have lost faith on the major political parties may also not be interested to join the citizens' movement. So, involvement of those frustrated people in the movement will be a challenging task.

Given the will, it may not be difficult to find answers to these questions. In order to carry forward the campaign, the citizens' group should develop a comprehensive programme which, inter alia, may address the following areas.

• A united civil society once again commanding respect of the nation can render invaluable service to the campaign for electing honest and competent candidates for general election.
• Committee should be formed at the zila level. The zila committee shall be responsible for implementation of the zila programme within the overall policy of the national committee.
• An awareness building campaign for electing honest and competent candidates for the general election has to be initiated immediately. The media can play a very important role in generating such an awareness raising campaign. All possible steps have to be taken to reach the rural voters.
• Voters should be given the understanding that they can organise campaign for clean candidates better than any body else as they have the best knowledge of honest and competent candidates in their constituencies.
• The citizens' group will have to pressurise the EC to ensure that the directives of the High Court regarding furnishing certain vital information by the candidates along with their nomination forms are complied with.

To conclude, the main objective of the campaign is to force the political parties to nominate honest and competent persons as candidates in the general elections. The political parties, whether large or small, can demonstrate their support for the campaign of the citizens' group by 'dumping their unclean candidates in favour of cleaner candidates.' This will help free general elections from the influence of black money and muscle power and take parliamentary democracy a deep root in the country.

M. Abdul Latif Mondal is a former Secretary to the government.