Party and politics
Woodrow Wilson, American President during the First World War, in his State of the Union message in 1917 remarked, “The world must be made safe for democracy”. By this comment he probably meant that the path of democracy is not that easy as we generally take it to be.
To achieve it, a nation has to make a perilous and hazardous journey. The American President's remark dates back almost a century.
Without political party, people's participation in the government is out of question. Since the birth of Bangladesh as a sovereign independent state we had many governments to hold the reins of the state without a political party in the real sense of the term. Most of the period we had a single party dictatorship in the garb of multiparty real democracy. We try to call three successive governments, which ruled the country from 1991 to 2006, as democratic government. But it is our consolation only. The people had cast their votes against symbols. They voted either for the 'paddy sheaf' or for the 'boat' in response to political slogans of the paid workers without seeing or knowing the person behind the symbols. Now is the time to do away with the political demagogues and select the real leaders who are known to be honest, fair and impartial.
The present caretaker government is working hard to bring in a system in which the brief-case political parties will have to leave the political profession for those who are people- friendly . Our politicians have made politics a highly profitable business. After 1/11 the whole nation has seen and identified the 'patriotic' looters, plunderers, thugs, ruffians, gangsters, hooligans, and what not, hidden within the government. These people who ruled the country after dismantling the dictatorship in 1990 belonged to the parties only for pecuniary interest and convenience. It is said Tk 25 crore used to be spent on an average by a candidate for a seat in parliament. The sources of such a huge amount of money spent in the election were never enquired into by any authority.
Yes, they belonged to political parties like the BNP, AL, BJP and many other small parties not worth mentioning.
A political party has multifarious functions and responsibilities. which may be summed up in the following manner.
First: their business is to frame the political issues for the people . Out of numerous tasks for the welfare of the people they select a few areas on priority basis and place them before the people for their acceptance. In public meetings they declare the selected programmes and also publish pamphlets in the newspapers to explain and advocate their programmes. Secondly, they start to select their candidates for each constituency giving topmost consideration to their popularity, honesty and integrity. Another important function of a political party is to undertake the programmes for civic education of the electorate. Another function of political parties is to run the government efficiently while in power and to act as watchdog while in opposition. A strong opposition in most cases prevents the party in power from being corrupt or inefficient. The above functions are only a few of the total functions of political parties. To perform the above functions members of a political party have to spend a lot of time in their constituencies with the people.
But what do we see in our political parties and the government? After the elections are over the MPs take their semi-permanent residence in Dhaka, leaving behind the electorate. Making 'tadbirs' in this or that office for their yes-men and relatives is their main job. They also take full advantage of their positions.
People this time around are hopeful that the newly constituted independent Election Commission will frame rules for proper conduct of the political parties and for holding the elections freely and impartially.
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