There are people, including this writer, who are not going gaga over the 'efficiency, honesty and sincerity' of the CTG for holding the elections. Nevertheless, it is good news that despite sections of Bangladeshi's belief in conspiracy theories, especially the proverbial one, 'hidden hands pulling the invisible strings', the country has again crossed another threshold towards another round of 'elected- not-democratic' government; another cycle of trial and error. Already, having won around ten per cent of seats in the parliament out of total 300 Khaleda Zia, the chief of the BNP-led coalition, has rejected the election results as by-products of mass rigging and joint-machinations by the CTG and the winning coalition under Hasina.
Meanwhile, the question goes abegging as to why after all these years of exposure to democratic institutions; and elections under British and Pakistani rule which were never ever stigmatised as rigged and unfair – at the grassroots level since the 1890s, provincial level since 1937 and national level since 1970 – the post-Ershad elections since 1991 were never accepted as 'free and fair' by the main opposition parties. Initiated by Sheikh Hasina in 1991, the bad precedent of not accepting defeat in elections conducted by supposedly neutral CTGs and monitored by national and international poll-observers has become a norm. Khaleda did the same thing in 1996, which was again repeated by Hasina in the wake of her defeat in 2001. In view of the above, the world is possibly again going to witness in disgust and disbelief (while the average Bangladeshis will be suffering) another round of five-year-long civil disobedience; which is again never 'civil' but always violent, nasty and obstructive to growth and governance. So much for parliamentary democracy under the 'neutral' CTG!
The failure of democracy and lack of civility and trust may be attributed to the failure of leadership. Ever since the emergence of Bangladesh, leaders with few exceptions have been treating the country as their personal fiefdom as per pre-capitalist, semi-feudal and colonial values. Politicians are supposed to educate the people in the art and science of good governance besides formulating public policies as members of the government or of the opposition. This is what not happening in Bangladesh as unfortunately the bulk of them do not have any known profession other than 'politics'; their main source of income being extracting surpluses from the state-coffer or playing godfather through extortions, directly or through their associates and clients, often in the name of running businesses.
It is neither hyperbolic nor exaggerative to blame the successive military governments of Zia and Ershad for initiating the process of promoting gangsters, professional killers, smugglers and their likes. They did so for the sake of legitimacy; their promotion of Islamist parties, including war criminals, was motivated by the same impulse, to legitimise their autocracy. Politicians from the right and left — unskilled, half-educated and unemployable demagogues, over-ambitious student or union leaders mostly belonging to the vacillating petty bourgeois classes – also lent support to the military oligarchs. After Zia had literally made politics 'difficult for politicians' and Ershad's institutionalising corruption and hedonism at every level, their civilian successors under the two political dynasties run by not-so-seasoned leaders did not give up the politics of patronage and corruption. Being surrounded by corrupt and inefficient lieutenants of Zia and Ershad, they eventually succeeded in making Bangladesh the 'most corrupt country' for five successive years. And the rest is history.
Consequently, it is too trite an assumption that a few rounds of elections and arrests/executions of extremists restore normalcy and bring about democracy, peace and prosperity. On the contrary, in consonance with Fareed Zakaria, one may argue that liberalism, the rule of law and respect for individual freedoms must precede democratic transition, not the other way round. Otherwise, what we get is 'illiberal democracy' or unaccountable oligarchy. Islamist terror and anarchy and the ill-advised state-sponsored Islamisation (replacing the age-old 'Khuda Hafiz' by hitherto unknown 'Allah Hafiz' and making Islam the 'state religion', for example) as its counterpoise are by-products of the ongoing hedonistic corruption and illiberal democracy in Bangladesh.
In view of the above, there is no reason to celebrate the death of Islamism (as only two Jamaatis got elected and other Islamists were eliminated politically) and anarchic politics only because the secular parties have got more than two-third majority in the parliament. Islamism and anarchy are the two heads of the same monster which is hell-bent to destabilise Bangladesh. They may be contained and eliminated eventually only through good governance. And good governance may be ensured only by installing good and efficient people to power. Although apparently the Westminster type of parliamentary government ensures grassroots-level participation and sense of belonging to the statecraft by the hoi polloi, devolution of power to give decision-making power to unskilled and corrupt godfathers (several of them are re-entering the parliament) is not going to do any good to the country in the short- or long-term. The country will be again back to square one.
Meanwhile, the winning party quite shamelessly had forged ties with General Ershad, a former convict, widely known as one of the most corrupt leaders in the Third World. It is a mystery (or possibly not at all) that some 'leftist' leaders who had once taken active roles in the overthrow of this military dictator are no longer strange bedfellows at all. It seems they have done so out of only one consideration, power. And when politics is a zero-sum power game, only god may help that nation.
Consequently, it is high time that the Awami League and the right-type of allies, minus the Jatiya Party of Ershad, with its two-third majority amend the Constitution to opt for a presidential form of government where the unskilled people with dubious character would no longer play any decisive role in the governance of the country. The presidential government would ensure a much better government with skilled cabinet members, who would not be there only because they got elected. We must not lose sight of the fact that many honest, educated and skilled people have always been defeated by almost illiterate/semi-literate people with criminal records. And these people can be politically eliminated only when they lose their say in the running of the polity. A presidential form of government, which is not less democratic and in vogue in newly emerging democracies like Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, may be adopted in Bangladesh for the sake of stability and progress.
Anyway, the so-called '1/11', which was actually a very well-orchestrated Bonapartist military takeover in alliance with some dubious civilian characters, had to surrender to the will of the people. We must look forward to the day when Bangladesh will finally get rid of the strange caretaker government provision from the Constitution; an unelected and unaccountable government – which has not yet been proven an honest broker, free from corruption, capricious leadership and inefficiency – is incongruous with the concept of democracy. Nothing could be more laughable than having an unelected government to usher democracy in a country which have had experienced free, fair and decisive elections in the past without the supervision of a nanny government. The next government should also restore the neutrality of the judiciary, armed forces and the Anti-Corruption Commission, which has become the butt of all the jokes.
Taj Hashmi is a professor, Security Studies APCSS, Honolu, Hawaii, USA