Tue 30 Jan 2007
COMMENT: Back from the brink or in the drink? —William B Milam
The fundamental question is the attitude of the Bangladesh military. Will this intervention resemble those of Turkey — quickly in to set things right and quickly out with civilians back in charge? Or will the temptations of power and the difficult reform agenda lead it to resemble those of its former partner, Pakistan?
I often think of Bangladesh in the same way that I think of the picturesque, painted wooden clock that I received as a gift 15 or so years ago in Khulna. No matter how badly battered, all that clock needs to start running again is for the hands to be restored to their original position and/or two new AA batteries. Bangladesh is in many ways like that clock; it is incredibly durable, and Bangladeshis are the most resilient people I know.
I believe that metaphor still works for most of the disasters that continue to visit that country and the hard scrabble lives of the great majority of its people. But the metaphor does not work for the political disaster that Bangladeshi democracy became — if only it were so that a little honest effort would restore that democracy to working order. But democracy in Bangladesh was never really in working order.
In fact, Bangladesh was never really a true democracy. While three of its four elections in the past 15 years have been relatively free and fair, and power has passed peacefully from one party to the other, the elected governments were never really able to govern in or out of parliament because of the poisonous political culture and the institutionalised political strategy of street violence that is the accustomed way of unseating elected governments. Thus, the Bangladeshi people were not sovereign; their elected agents neither expressed their will nor followed their wishes.
The Bangladesh army must have known this well enough, but preferred to remain out of politics after the somewhat disastrous Ershad years of the 1980s. There was, I guess, always hope that, given enough time and rope, the civilian politicians would sort things out and learn to govern a nation rather than focus on marginalising each other and collecting the rents of bad governance.
That they did not, despite all the opportunities, will certainly be viewed as supporting evidence by the army in Pakistan that civilians cannot be trusted with full sovereignty to govern.
Despite its strong reluctance to intervene, the army could not just watch as the country tore itself apart. Some readers may think that an extravagant statement. But if you were watching closely two weeks ago, as the situation spun out of control, you would have been reminded of the anarchic days of November 1975, when military coups and mutinies occurred almost every other day. The old-line professional army (those mostly who had served in the Pakistan army before separation) took direct control and stabilised the situation then.
The situation last week had not yet reached the anarchic proportions that it had reached 31 years ago, but much of the political and economic progress that the country had made over the past 15 years was seriously threatened.
It is not clear to me, however, that the Bangladeshi military holds the same negative view of civilian political sovereignty as does its Pakistani homologue. Its intervention a few days ago, unlike the earlier ones, as well as the military interventions in Pakistan, does not seem to be a reassertion of the claim that only the army can govern in a way that protects all national interests. This military intervention may come to be viewed as necessary to stop a slide into chaos and, possibly, civil war.
The army, while clearly in charge, has stayed in the background and named a number of outstanding individuals to run the caretaker government. I know some of these men and think very highly of them. I do not believe that they see themselves as front men for a military regime. They will be their own men.
This combination of behind-the-scenes military leaders and out-front civilian leaders will likely have a grace period, perhaps as much as nine months or a year, to stabilise the country and effect political reform. But it is doubtful that this will be long enough to undertake deep-seated reform, which in any case, usually requires an elected government to be sustainable.
Nonetheless, many of its supporters will argue that a long period of ‘Caretaker Government’ is needed to put the kind of reform in place that will ensure a sustainable democracy when civilian politicians are once again at the helm. I would argue the alternative: that the Caretaker Government should fix the broken electoral mechanisms that led to the crisis in the first place, take several important actions that both major parties have promised to take in the past but wouldn’t do when in power, set in motion processes for longer term reform that will strengthen democracy and its institutions, hold a free and fair election, and then get out while the getting is good.
The temptation will be to stay until the entire reform agenda is achieved, but that is what has proved the undoing of even the best-intentioned unelected reform governments. The problem is that, sooner or later, unelected governments, even those made up of talented, honest and serious people as this one is, must seek legitimacy. In Bangladesh, where public patience with unelected regimes is notoriously limited, this is especially true.
Even Ziaur Rahman, who was in my view the anomaly among the military leaders of Muslim South Asia, stayed too long. Zia’s legacy is still disputed. He may have saved Bangladesh from fragmentation, possibly severe civil violence, but he also installed direct military rule. He may have led Bangladesh back to civilian rule, but he reached out to Islamist parties and others who had opposed the creation of a separate Bangladesh (after having opposed the creation of a separate Pakistan in 1947) to build support and legitimacy.
The historical debate about Zia frames, in a sense, the divisions that continue to roil Bangladeshi politics. As he sought legitimacy, he defined a national vision that emphasises territory and religion (Islam), to compete with the primordial view, based on language and culture, that was the vision of the founders of the nation.
It is tempting to characterise Bangladesh’s political problems as the outgrowth of the dislike and disdain the two lady leaders of the two major parties have for each other. But the problems are far deeper than that and much harder to resolve. Acceptance of one national vision over the other or melding the two seems a long way off. It would be easier to start with slightly less impossible tasks such as minimising corruption and sanitising the poisonous, zero-sum-game political culture, but these are also long-term projects.
I think it unlikely that the Caretaker Government would be able to complete such tasks in the timeframe it will have. But it could start the process by setting up a strong and effective anti-corruption unit, and by establishing rules that define acceptable political behaviour. More importantly, it can ensure that the election mechanisms are repaired of all their flaws: establishing a method of keeping the voters list up-to-date with voter registration easy and quick; and setting up a truly non-partisan and self perpetuating election commission. It can also promulgate measures that both parties have regularly promised but never delivered, such as the full separation of the judiciary from the executive.
The fundamental question, however, is the attitude of the Bangladesh military. Will this intervention resemble those of Turkey—quickly in to set things right and quickly out with civilians back in charge? Or will the temptations of power and the difficult reform agenda lead it to resemble those of its former partner, Pakistan?
William Milam is a former US ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh. He is currently at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. He is a patron of the US-Bangladesh Advisory Council.
This article appeared in the Daily Times, Pakistan, on January 24, 2007
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\01\24\story_24-1-2007_pg3_2
January 31st, 2007 at 5:29 am
While for some the competing national visions (language and culture vs territory and religion) were/are a major reason to support one or the other political sides, I doubt if this had anything to do with the political acrminoy of the recent years.
A more immediate reason might be in the incentives the parties had under the post-1990 ‘winner takes all’ political system. In that system, the elected side gets to control everything from the Presidency of the Republic to the chairmanship of the local cricket club for 5 years. Given such a high stake, the acrimony is not surprising at all.
Also, the acrimony didn’t develop overnight. As Rumi Bhai noted in another post, the 1991 BNP government was more tolerant than its successors. This is because politicians in that government weren’t fully aware of their potential power. The AL government were not so naive, the result was the attempted election engineering of 2001 (this seems a long time ago now, but Latifur Rahman became very controversial when he shuffled the bureaucracy in mid 2001). The second BNP government made an art form of the ‘chor-dokhol’ politics. But none of these really had their origins in the ‘competing view of nationhood’.
February 3rd, 2007 at 1:12 am
Anthony,
You have been monitoring n writing a lot on Bangladesh Political Culture and therefore your assessment “winner takes all” is very correct and infact thats how dominance over others come in and then subsequently corruption- whereas the actual scenerio should be the reverse whereby Citizens should be dominant in their role to have their Representatives(MPs) fulfill their election commitments or else through bye -election have the MP replaced by another.That would be Democracy.This didnt happen in Bangladesh but it also didnt happen in other Asian countries and even in the most developed country USA election manipulation takes place;Bush election is the best example and there also “winner Republicans takes all”- intewrms of both domestic and foreign policies.
However what would be very helpful for Bangladesh is for you and ex-Ambassadors Like Milam to inform through writing articles how system in other countries works–like what methods r used to make a proper Voter list, Make a independent EC 0ffice and how much of Democratic steps are followed by the Political Parties themselves in choosing their leaders and seniors and what methods they have to train juniors in the party so that eventually they might replace them as efficient politicans.In order to Identify an elligible Voter what method is used in foreign countries-Driving License,State ID or does the EC 0ffice/Registrar 0ffice have a special methode or serial number alloted to Citizens.
Right now in Bangladesh there is lot of discussion of Voter ID card with Photo; how feasible is that in view of Computer and software development facilities here to sustain that programme-some say possible-some say not possible ;in that case what the best alternative.
In foreign countries too Election Expenses are quite a large sum-money collected is through various methods but what system do they follow to make that transpartent and what is their limitations ?? These we need to know instead of critical statements from different foreign writers specially those that have been in the Country and think they r experts in their opinion- I had expected MILAM would write more on these lines- that we r not becomeing democratic is already known but why?? System failure or over Dominance by Party??- infact both should be rectified but we need inputs from foreign sources to compare and produce better reesults. What do you think?????