'Roadmap' and One/Eleven are the highly talked words in Bangladesh, especially among the educated urban middle class. One/Eleven is the date of 11 January of 2007, the oath-taking day of present Interim Government. And the ‘roadmap’ is the election process and planning of the Election Commission, which was constituted by the interim government, came into power on 11 January, 2007.
The Interim Government has passed a year of its responsibility and the new Election Commission is also running through their declared ‘roadmap’. Though the prime responsibility of the Interim Government is holding a free, fair and generally accepted National Election, i.e. the parliamentary election, the government includes anti-corruption drive, various reforms in administration and legal fields and in politics in its agenda. As a result, activities of the government become very vast, complex, difficult and complicated. And of course the prime duty of the government stands in front of a question of citizens that, is the government intending to hold a parliamentary election acceptable to all political parties and communities of the nation and society within the time declared in ‘roadmap’?
After restructuring the Election Commission, the government and the Commission had agreed to prepare a competent voter list within a possible short period and holding a national election on or before December 2008. The Election Commission has also declared time segmentation for preparing voter list and for few other related activities.
Very recently the Election Commissioners said that almost 30 million voters are already been listed around the country and the rest of the voters will be listed as per the ‘roadmap’. The anticipated number of voters is not more than 80 million.
In the election scenario of Bangladesh, the issue of local government election is also evolving with due importance. Presently, in Bangladesh, local government means six City Corporation, the Municipalities and the Union Porishadas (councils). Most of the local government bodies are also due to hold elections. That is why the Election Commission is thinking of holding the election of those local bodies in the time frame mentioned in election ‘roadmap’.
Before One/Eleven scenario, there was a demand from the civil society of Bangladesh to make the local government bodies stronger and put out the law makers from poking nose in to the local government bodies to institutionalize Democracy. As of this demand, the Interim Government took this issue in their agenda and includes two more steps for local government in the process. These are the Zilla Porishod (district council) and the Upazilla Porishod (sub-district council).It should be mentioned that Bangladesh has the experience of the both types of local government in past.
Any way, the long ‘roadmap’ of Election Commission, the anticorruption drive of government, detention of top political leaders and other initiatives of the authorities develops a doubtful situation among the politicians of the country. As a consequence, politicians of major parties are demanding a dialogue between political parties and the government. The government has also a feeling that a dialogue could be helpful to resolve many political, legal, ethical, administrative and constitutional problems and issues. One or more advisors of the Interim Government have already told that even post election issues could be and should be discussed in the dialogue with political parties. The heavy weights of the major political alliances and parties are also talking about the method and conditions of such dialogue.
As the authorities have the good intention to conduct election of local government bodies prior to the parliamentary election, as the election commission is walking through their ‘roadmap’, as the politicians have the good purpose to resolve the national problems and as the constitution of Bangladesh ask the concerned people and authorities to establish an elected political government for the nation, a dialogue is essential between the Interim Government of Bangladesh and the Political Parties of the Country. Though there is no success story of dialogue in the political history of Bangladesh.
* The author is a Bangladesh based senior journalist and can be contacted at mabbas1961@yahoo.com
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