Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 668 Sun. April 16, 2006  
   
Feature


Civil Society Intiative for Accountable Development
What must be done


For an accountable development process we needs following steps to be the taken:

1. A candidate for member of parliament cannot be shareholder in business organization, because he/she could try to take political influence to profit his/her business organization.

2. A candidate for MP must be free from criminal record and criminal activities, and candidates found to indulge in criminal activities in the past must not be eligible for MP candidate.

3. Money, muscle and administrative influence (in case of ruling party) are mixed together which creates an abnormal situation and makes it hard to ensure free and fair election even after taking over by caretaker government, because the previously elected government can prepare in advance the blueprint to come to power to by utilizing police, army, EC commission staff, money, and hoodlums. Therefore, the reform of EC is justified and must be done from time to time when required with consultation with ruling party and all opposition parties.

4. For an accountable development process good, wise, educated, honest people must come forward as candidates, otherwise all bad people will drive away good people, as bad money drives away good money from the market. This is the number one solution for creating good environment and accountable development process for brighter future of Bangladesh. If all honest, wise and good people keep aloof from politics then the bad people will fill up the gap as we see now a day.

5. The extreme point of expression as we see today is the corruption at the highest level, including judiciary and administration, the prices of basic needs such as rice, fish, vegetables sky-rocketing, daily utility power, gas price out of reach and not available, fertilizer is also expensive and distribution channel already broken down, inflation at the highest level and foreign currency price jumping every day. In such a situation people's sufferings have no limit. If such a situation continues for a longer period of time, people may even revolt (like in Kansat). Even they might be enraged enough to take arms to kill these corrupt, incompetent, money-sucking ministers, MPs, and their allies. The danger of this kind if uprising if the present situation is not improved is very real.

6. Money expending for MP election has limits, as per Election Commission rule, but actually the candidates for MP are expending 100 times more than the limit. In Bangladesh, money influence is too much to elect bad candidate. Some kind of corrective mechanism must be made, otherwise rich people with bad record will be elected.

7. To elect clean candidates, people should avoid to support any particular political party, but rather vote for clean candidate if even he/she is independent candidate. A bunch of clean, competent, educated and honest candidate can change the total scenario of Bangladesh like in Malaysia, Thailand, etc.

8. The ruling party and opposition parties should give ticket to young, educated, competent and honest candidates for future leadership of the country. But sorry to say, the present ruling party has include lots of Young Turks who are basically corrupted, incompetent, and whose past record is not good.

9. EC must be a strong, independent body and must be free from government influence, like in India. In any circumstance if any candidate/MP is found guilty, then EC at that moment must suspend him/her.