Political parties are important democratic institutions. They are in essence engines or driving force of democracy. As a carriage cannot move without its engine, similarly democracy cannot function without effective political parties. The crisis in Bangladesh's democracy is, in fact, largely due to dysfunctional political parties in our country. Thus, urgent reforms are needed in our political parties.

Political parties are composed of people organised on the basis of an ideology or a program. Since public welfare rather than furthering personal interests is the purpose of political parties, they must be democratic, transparent and accountable organisations. Are these values reflected in the constitutions of our political parties? Are they at all implemented?

We can get a clear idea how our political parties function by examining, among others, the eligibility and process of granting their membership, the procedures of electing their leadership and taking major decisions, transparency of their finances, and the role of their primary members in the nomination process.

Any citizen 18 years or older can become members of Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and Jatiyo Party (JP). To be a member of AL, the approval of relevant committees is needed. According to its constitution, hooligans or those engaged in anti-public safety activities are ineligible to become AL members. However, the reality is very different -- many known godfathers are well placed in AL, and many of them were nominated for the elections scheduled to be held last January.

As per the BNP constitution, anyone who believes in terrorism or engages in politics based on secret terrorist activities cannot become a member of BNP. However, many individuals who were known patrons of JMB hold important positions in BNP hierarchy and many or them were nominated for the cancelled elections of last January.

According to the JP constitution, only honest persons can become its members. With this constitutional provision, even the chairman of JP, who has had convictions of multiple criminal offences, cannot retain his membership of JP. Thus, it is clear that none of the major political parties practice what is in their constitutions.

Since political parties in Bangladesh are constitutionally recognised entities rather than secret organisations, they must have published lists of their members and those lists must be continuously updated. BNP and JP constitutions have clear provisions for maintaining such lists. However, none of the parties even maintain lists of their members, let alone publishing them.

AL's constitution provides for direct elections of its president, presidium members, general secretary, other secretaries, treasurer (who are member of the executive committee) in party councils every three years. However, there is no provision for secret ballot in its constitution. In addition, 21 out of 166 members of the national committee and 26 of the 73 members of the executive committee are nominated by the party president. The president also nominates all 41 members of the advisory committee.

Although the AL constitution bestows no special powers on its president, and the elected committees are to make all decisions, the reality is very different -- the president, in connivance with those closest to her, takes the important decisions. A case in point is the agreement secretly signed with Khelafat Majlis last December. In addition, the party council has not been held for a long time and even when it was held, the party president was authorised to pick the leadership. The committees also do not meet regularly.

Despite the denial from the party, the prominence of the Bangabandhu family is clearly visible in AL. Many close relatives of the party president hold important positions in AL, although there are serious allegations of wrongdoings against some of them. One indication of the Bangabandhu family's prominence are the three photographs on the homepage of the AL website -- that of Bangabandhu, party president Sk. Hasina, and her son Sajeeb Wajed Joy -- although Joy holds no important position in the party.

According to the BNP constitution, the party chairman is to be elected in party councils every two years. The 251 members of the executive committee, except for presidents of district and city committee, who are ex-officio members, are nominated by the chairman. Similarly, all the 15 members of the permanent national committee, who also serve as nomination board, and the 15 member advisory parishad, are nominated by the chairman. More seriously, the BNP council has not been held in the last 14 years. Furthermore, the committees seldom meet.

It is clear that the BNP chairman has absolute power over the party and it is, in fact, a family dynasty. For example, the chairman had arbitrarily appointed her own son as the senior joint secretary of the party even though there is no such post in the party constitution. Furthermore, she recently appointed her brother Major (Ret) Sayeed Ishkander as a party vice chairman without consulting others at a time when demand for party reform has become intense and widespread.

According to its constitution, the sources of AL's income is Tk 20 thrice-yearly fee of its councilors, the regular monthly fee of the members of the executive committee, Tk 200 (currently Tk 2,000) monthly fee of MPs, Tk 100 approval fee of district committees, proceeds from sales of publications, one-time contributions, money raised through socio-cultural exhibitions, the three-yearly membership fee of Tk 5 for primary members, etc.

A daily Prothom Alo report (February 9, 2007) indicates that the AL requires about Tk 12 crore for regular operation of the party each year, of which not even 10 percent comes from known sources. Then the logical question is: from where does the rest of the money come? A partial answer comes from the alleged confessions of the recently arrested general secretary of the party and some business leaders. In these confessions, widely published in the media though not yet proven in the court of law, serious allegations were raised against the party chief of regularly and secretly taking huge sums of money from businessmen. There are also allegations of extortion against her and members of her extended family. No official record of these financial transactions is available as they were not transacted through bank accounts although the party constitution calls for having bank accounts for each unit, which are to be run with joint signatures and audited each year.

BNP has no other known sources of income except for Tk 2 membership fee of primary members and Tk 1 renewal fee. According to the above-mentioned Prothom Alo report, BNP's regular operational cost is about Tk 15 crore each year. No one other than the party higher ups knows the sources of these huge sums of money. However, the alleged confessional statements of former State Minister for Home published in the media provide some clue about their sources. He apparently alleged that the BNP chairman and her son made an agreement with a business group to absolve them of murder charges for a sum of Tk 50 crore. He further alleged that BNP received Tk 300 crore from three countries before the 2001 national elections. Defying the constitution, BNP also does not carry out financial transactions through bank accounts, let alone auditing those accounts.

Although the parliamentary boards of AL, BNP and JP, according to the respective party constitutions, have the final say in deciding party nominations, the party chiefs in reality make the decisions. In this context, there are serious allegations of selling nominations for money, now popularly known as mononoyan banijya. It is alleged that prior to the elections scheduled to be held on January 22, AL nominations in 50 seats were sold for a minimum of Tk 50 lakh to a maximum amount of Tk 20 crore, resulting in illegal transfer of hundreds of crores of taka (Prothom Alo, 14 January 2007).

There are also serious allegations of illegal inter-party transfer of huge sums of money. For example, it is claimed that AL agreed to pay Tk 60-70 crore, of which Tk 3.5 crore were paid as advance, to bring JP into the fold of the 14-party grand alliance. On the other hand, BNP allegedly offered to pay JP Tk 50-60 crore, of which Tk 2 crore were paid in advance, which had to be returned later. Apparently BNP also agreed to make General Ershad the President (Prothom Alo, January 15, 2007).

It is clear from these alleged illegal, immoral and self-serving actions, the party primary members of AL, BNP and JP have nothing to do with the nominations, although AL constitution allows district and upazila committees to make recommendations. Thus, the party high commands do not have any accountability to their primary members -- parties do not even have lists of their primary members.

To conclude, it is clear that even though constitutions of some of our major political parties have some provisions for internal democracy and financial transparency, they are not at all practiced. Parties do not even have lists of their primary members, not even to mention accountability from party higher-ups to them. Consequently, absolute autocracy and dynasty are in place in our three major political parties.

Since power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, our major political parties have now become dens of uncontrolled corruption. And elections have becomes means of going to power at any cost and politics has become a naked business-for-profit. In other words, our main political parties have become instruments for furthering selfish interests rather than public welfare, and they function like secret syndicates organised for that purpose.

The proposed reform of political parties and their compulsory registration under the Election Commission are intended to redress these ills. I hope our respected politicians will come to terms with this reality and immediately embark on significant reforms of their parties in the greater national interest. However, citizens groups must continue exerting pressures.

Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar is Secretary of Shujan (Citizens for Good Governance).