The prospects of dialogue
Politics, as has been enunciated by many political scientists, is a competitive game, where the reward is political power achieved through playing out the game according to some prescribed rules. Games are in general orderly, except for the odd occasions of crowd indiscipline or indiscipline among the contestants. In politics as well, except in cases of national catastrophes, such as the assassinations of elected leaders, war, natural catastrophes and similar extreme but otherwise rare incidents, the game has to be played out in orderly fashion. Although the competitors are matched against one another, and may even dislike one another, the fact they are playing a game means that they have to agree about how to play and what to play for. They agree that the prize is worth having and there are some basic rules of conduct. We have, in our country, through the evolutionary history of the Liberation War, first parliamentary, and then a Presidential system of government, assassination of presidents, martial law, and established a parliamentary form of government with a caretaker interim government having overseen the general elections that allowed the contesting political parties to achieve their objective of assuming the reins of government.
At the moment, there is a sense of unease in society in which the practice of politics is becoming inimical to the serious side of life, with making of a living, with education, with basic health care. When politics interferes with raising families or producing enough to care for them, then people say that there is something wrong with the political structure. This can happen when politics has ceased to be an orderly competition and becomes a fight: when conflict takes place without the control of an agreed set of rules, when, it seems, few holds are barred because the fight is to decide which set of rules will in future regulate political competition.
One feels that a situation has now arisen that the basic precipices of parliamentary and participatory democracy and free and fair elections accepted by all the contestants in the elections are in jeopardy. All the political parties now in the contest had agreed to a parliamentary democracy in 1991, and general elections to choose a party or parties to govern the nation for a period of five years. Endless extreme catastrophes or very emergent issues require the government to resign and declare fresh elections. Normally the incumbent government resigns when it loses its majority in parliament. As such the parliament is the supreme arbiter of who is to govern and continue to govern.
Changes from one political structure to another can be gradual and virtually unnoticed by the players. This was in process when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman organised the BAKSAL and one-party governance in the style of the then communist countries, though not with the same rules of the game. Then changes in political structure have been sudden, dramatic, even violent as on 15 August, and then 7 November 1975, the Martial Law on 24 March 1981, and then the 'rebirth' of parliamentary democracy through a confrontational movement launched by all parties to oust Gen. Ershad.
After the fall of Ershad and the establishment of parliamentary democracy through sanction of a nationwide referendum, we have found confrontation between the major political parties has been increasing. Between 1995 and 1996 and now from around 1999 till now, the confrontational situation has taken on a new dimension. In a rational political structure of parliamentary democracy the only way to change governments is through the ballot, and the way to force a ballot is to confront the party in power in parliament. The prime need for achieving a good and humane society is a more perfect expression of democratic will. Democracy must be made genuine and inclusive. With true democracy, we would succeed in achieving the good society, which would even have an aspect of inevitability. It is time that both the mainstream parties give up their old stratagems of eternal confrontation on the streets between party activists and come up with a coalition of the concerned for democracy through dialogue inside and outside the Jatiya Shangshad.
The opposition pre-requisite for a dialogue within and outside the Jatiya Shangshad is the issue of the caretaker government to oversee the elections. The unique provision for a caretaker government comprising neutral and professional and dedicated leaders of the society has largely improved the image of Bangladesh in the past two decades, as a country which is striving to achieve free and fair elections in these strife-torn times in South Asia. The specifications of the caretaker government are rather evident, even commonplace, and with some exceptions – in the case of the confrontational politics of today – acceptable, especially in the oratory of the time. It is the actions necessary to achieve these ends that must be above controversy in the dialogue between the main contending parties in general elections.
Now with the turmoil emerging from the war crimes verdicts and the terrorism of Jamaat-Shibir and groups and factions allied to them, coupled with the youth movement dedicated to the Liberation War, the time has come for a meaningful and comprehensive political dialogue between, the Awami League, the BNP, the Jatiya party, JSD, CPB and other parties believing in the existence of Bangladesh. Obviously the main agenda in such a dialogue will be about the formation of a neutral interim caretaker arrangement to oversee the next general elections. Other issues relate to the prevention of anarchy within the country and the prevention of bloodshed among party activists, workers and the general public.
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The writer is a former government official, journalist and writer.
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