Asking for democracy?
The national election will be held on December 18, 2008. The two leaders of the two major political parties want a guarantee that they will win the election. I will not be surprised if they suddenly demand that the chief election commissioner resign but I hope I am wrong. The meaning of democracy covers something more than holding an election. In the last three elections, we saw the elected prime minister as the centre of all power. The defeated party collectively punished the whole nation with hartal and violence. I am not a politician, I've never been involved in politics in my life. Maybe that's why I don't understand the language of Bangladeshi politicians, but I do understand that a strong democratic institution is far more important than this type of election. Britain , Sweden, Denmark and many other countries' heads of state are a queen or king but there is still a strong democratic institution, so that the people enjoy their basic rights. If Bangladesh established a strong democratic institution, even like Singapore, there would be no need for this type of strange caretaker government system. I hope this will be the last caretaker government. Our country's justice system sometimes works very fast and sometimes slower than a tortoise. Politics everywhere need lots of clean up. Law enforcement must work under the judiciary system. Their training and concern should be for public safety and security, rather than following the home minister's orders only. This is the time for the Election Commission to show their strong leadership. In 1970, we had a general election under martial law, there was no room for unreasonable compromise. Fifty-five years ago the Muslim League almost disappeared (1954) through the election. These days we don't have any leaders like Fazlul Haque or Moulana Bhasani but if we create a good environment, we will encourage good people to join politics. Unemployment, corruption, violence, energy crisis, floods, poverty, we have many problems. We need strong and smart leadership. For me, it is not important who is going to be our next prime minister, what's important is how he or she leads the nation. There is frustration everywhere, demands keep coming one after another. It is not possible to satisfy everyone, I hope the big political parties do not make excuses to pull out of the polls. A majority, minority or coalition, whatever government we may have, now everyone should focus on a fair and peaceful election. Nobody wants to go back to the unruly political culture we used to have.
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