Fresh Thinker

The head of the caretaker government in Bangladesh disclose the plan for
general parliamentary election in December of 2008. Voting was due in
January last year. It was postponed until late 2008 after months of
political violence and weeks of bloodshed in the streets. The political
parties ran into a deadlock and the country was headed to a civil war.

There has been much talk about reform inside political parties to avoid
the situation like this in future. The interim government undertook a
long overdue war on corruption. A band of criminals have gone under
justice. This is pretty unprecedented for Bangladesh.

Now what is the point of election if all you do is reject the results?
Who needs a parliament, if the opposition would remain absent most of
the times? This has been happening for last 15 years by both big
parties. When Ershad's government fell in 1990 after a long public
unrest, a care taker government was set up to hold a free and fare
election. Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won the election and formed
the government. Khaleda Zia, wife of late president Ziaur Rahman, became
the first female prime minister in country's history. Awami League (AL)
became the main opposition party lead by Sheikh Hasina, daughter of late
President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Hasina claimed irregularity in the
election and rejected the results, but soon decided to play along and
attended the parliament. In inauguration, she declared that she would
not let the government to be in peace for a single day. She kept her
promise and called strikes for hundreds of days. BNP officials told us
about how the country is loosing millions of dollars in every workless
day of strike.

In following term, after some initial hiccups of February'96 election,
AL won the June'96 general election and Sheikh Hasina became the second
female Prime Minister of Bangladesh. However, things hardly changed as
Khaleda Zia stole few page of AL's book and maintained the political
unrest in the street. As a result a failed parliament hanged over the
poor nation for one more term of five years.

In all these 10 years, while opposition was engaged in all possible ways
to ignite a public unrest in the street, the ruling parties were engaged
in all kind of corruption. It was in fact a rat race to see who can grab
more and how fast. Corruption was institutionalized in Bangladesh by
then. Upon coming into the government, the ruling parties dismissed all
corruption cases filed by previous government and interim government
proclaiming those were politically biased case. Criminals arrested by
previous government and interim government were released proclaiming
they all were political detainee. So everyone knew for sure that there
will be no consequence even if your party loose the next election. You
just have to survive next five years, and then your party will be back
in power again. You will be able to erase all your bad deed and get
fresh start in doing more corruption again. The opposition was not in
the streets to say that ruling ministers are doing bad and needs
correction. They are in the street to ask the ruling party to resign, so
the opposition can become ruling party to do the corruption. It was
like, it's okay to do the corruption, but why you? I can do it better.
With no surprise, Bangladesh claimed the title of the most corrupt
country in the report published by Transparency International for the
first time.

Some of the most corrupt ministers of Sheikh Hasina's government were
running from justice and went into hiding as soon as the interim
government was setup to hold the election. Police raid their home to
find weapons and all kind of illegal stuffs. But you can do only so much
in three months. The criminals knew it.

In 2000 election, the parties switched there respective position once
again as BNP's four-party alliance got a landslide victory of more than
two-third majority. As the people of Bangladesh were fed up with
corruption, Khaleda Zia took oath to be the prime minister of
Bangladesh. She took office with a huge mandate and a promise to end
corruption. But she blew it. Or is she? All indicators suggest that her
government has accelerated the corruption. While the ministers and their
associates bag millions of dollars, Bangladesh named the most corrupt
country of the world three times in a row. The degree of their
corruption was an open secret. Every one knew it and no one was ashamed
for this anymore. We saw the horrific description of their corruption in
their own words in recent months, thanks to current interim government's
war on corruption.

In the eve of 2006 election, all old ministers came back from hiding.
Everyone knew the stakes were huge, more than ever. If you win the
lection, you get to hand billions of dollars of corrupt money. If you
don't win, you get nothing. This time no one wanted to be in the side
line for five years. This is a must win election for all. Both BNP and
AL hand out nomination papers to the corrupt criminals. It was reported
in all major local newspapers that millions of dollars were exchanged
hand behind the closed door in picking the nominee for political
parties. With those many, BNP and AL started an open auction to get the
third big political party Jatio Party and its leader former dictator
General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. It was interesting to read local
newspapers in anticipation of where General Ershad will go and for how
much.

Finally AL got him. General Ershad joined AL's grand alliance. However,
BNP's residual force in election commission dismissed General Ershad's
candidacy. As a result Ershad's Jatio Party boycotted the election and
soon AL with its grand alliance boycotted the election. Live videos of
people being murdered in the street started to come into local
television. The whole country was heading for a bloody civil war.

It was everyone's anticipation to when the army will come out in the
street to stop the bloodshed. Then it happened in January 11, 2007 and a
new interim government was setup. In Bangladesh the event is called
one-eleven. The expectation was to heal the divided country, root out
corruption, reform political parties, and then hold a free fare general
election so the country would not go back to pre-one-eleven situation.
Two years seemed to be a reasonable time frame to do just that. I am
happy to see that Fakhruddin Ahmed, the head of current interim
government, is committed to that time frame. But all the pieces of this
puzzle have to be fall in place to do the magic. The question is: are we
there yet?

I am not saying to halt the election, or not even to delay the election.
I believe the election should be held by end of 2008. Two years should
be enough time. But the point is, enough time for what?

I am not seeing Bangladesh political leaders are saying anything to
assure either the people of Bangladesh or the international community.
They are not saying yet that what happened in December 2006 and early
January 2007 was a big mistake and that won't happen again. They are not
saying it was mistake to be absent in the parliament for last three
terms. They are not saying that they would not hand out nomination in
close door to country's top criminals anymore. They are not assuring us
that they would establish a fare and transparent procedure to give out
party nomination. They are not assuring us that they would establish
democracy in their own party. They are not saying they would remove
dictatorship from their party's constitution. All major political
parties in Bangladesh are virtually run by dictators and all set to pass
down as a property to be inherited. How one, who is a dictator by one's
party constitution, will be able to show any sort of democratic behavior
upon getting the entire state in hand to run?

Finally here is the billion dollar question. Well, it may be a trillion
dollar as well. The party leaders are not saying that they would
disclose party financing details, who are giving all these money, how
much, and where are they spending it. This is the mother of all
corruption. If the criminals and corrupts put money in the party, it is
very logical that they would like to get a return. If you practice
corruption in your own party, how could you give the country anything
other than the corruption when you get elected? It's like a stripper is
asking us to give an election so she could be appointed as a nun. In
Bangla, they say it "bhuter mukhe ram nam". To be saved from ghosts, a
good Hindu person calls the name of god Ram. It is believed that the
ghost gets scared by mare mention of the name of god and leaves the
person alone. Well, what will happen if the ghost himself is calling the
name of Ram? That day we all will be deceived. The people of Bangladesh
have been deceived by these types of politicians for a really long time.
The question now remains for the world to see if the people of
Bangladesh can rise out of this deception. We are already seeing the
crack. Call me an over optimistic, but I am very confident that in the
end of all these mess, a bright light of true people's democracy will
shine over Bangladesh. A little passion and a firm commitment is all it
needs.

[GM Solaiman writes from Silicon Valley, California. He can be reached
at gm.solaiman@gmail.com]