Everyone is talking about political reform in Bangladesh, reform of not just the political parties, but also the political system itself. Specifically, since Gen Moeen called for it a few months ago, a rebalancing of the powers of the Prime Minister and the President has been a major subject of speculation. Lately, a few ‘reformist’ politicians like Suranjit Sengupta have asked for such rebalancing. Some of my fellow bloggers are not convinced by the reformists’ bona fide or the effectiveness of their proposals (example, here, here and here). And then there is also the very important fact that any such rebalancing of the executive powers will require constitutional amendments, and at the very least, our experience with constitutional amendments brought forward by unelected governments under cover of extra-constitutional rule is not a very happy one.

Having accepted all of the above, let’s take a step back, and ask: do we need any rearrangement to the executive branch of the government, and if so, what are the options? As usual, looking forward to a constructive debate.

The case for a rearrangement

The doctrine of separation of power is a basic pre-requisite for a democratic polity. Simply put, those who make the laws (the legislature), those who run the country according to the laws (the executive) and those who judge when laws are broken (the judiciary) should be separate people, with each of the branches having appropriate checks and balances on the others.

There should be a broad agreement that for the past 16 years (and indeed, for the previous two decades as well) the executive branch had been much stronger than the legislative and the judiciary branches in Bangladesh. Indeed, under our system of pre-1/11 democracy, all powers were concentrated in the hands of the prime minister (or whomever she delegated those powers to). As I’ve argued earlier, this system had made confrontational politics inevitable. And if there is no change to the system, a simple reshuffling of the party chairpersons will not result in any qualitative improvement in our politics. If the power of the executive is not trimmed, Hasina-Khaleda antagonism of yesterday will be replaced by Mannan-Tofail animosity of tomorrow.

There are a number of ways through which the power of the executive can be trimmed. The need for an independent judiciary is well-understood, so I’ll not talk about that. I’ll also abstain from discussing devolution of power to local government and electoral systems in this post (I plan to take up those issues in some follow up posts). Instead, I’ll focus on some specific mechanisms to trim the power of the executive branch and boost that of the legislative branch. Please share your thoughts on any or all of them.

Article 70

One oft-argued mechanism to increase the power of the parliament vis-à-vis the executive is the repealing of the Article 70 of the constitution that prohibits floor-crossing (voting against the party line). As a result of this article, individual MPs effectively become powerless in the face of party leadership.

The supporters of the Article 70 point to the article’s historical background. In the pre-Ayub Pakistan, parliamentary majorities changed very rapidly. Under the 1956 constitution, Pakistan had four Prime Ministers in 30 months. During the end days of Ayub’s rule, in the negotiations between the army and politicians (including Sheikh Mujib), this parliamentary horse-trading came up as a reason against the parliamentary form of government (which was one thing politicians of both wings agreed on). To negate that criticism, politicians proposed the idea behind the Article 70. The draft constitutions presented by Awami League to the army during March 1971 talks included a similar clause, and the article didn’t raise any criticism during the framing of the 1972 constitution.

However, recent history suggests that the Article by itself provides no safeguard against auctioning of MPs. For example, the 30 April 2004 political drama allegedly involved bribing MPs to cross the floor and bring down the government. If enough MPs were ready to be sold to the highest bidder, the Article would not suffice in keeping a government in power. The Article does, however, make it impossible for the conscientious MP to vote against the party line on ideological or policy-related ground.

Instead of the Article 70, a better way of ensuring that MPs don’t cross the floor for money is to reform electoral laws such that to get a party ticket, one must be a member of the party for a period of time (see here).

Parliamentary committees

One way the legislative branch keeps the executive branch in check is through the standing committees. The standing committees regularly review the bureaucracy, question specific policies, and vet important appointments. In the US, for example, all cabinet and higher court appointments (made by the president) are vetted by Senate committees. As Jalal Alamgir, a regular commenter, has argued, similar arrangements should be made in Bangladesh.

Increasing the power of the president

In addition to the above measures to increase the power/effectiveness of the parliament, some argue that the president should be made more powerful. But it is not clear exactly how much power should the president have.

For example, should the president have the power to dissolve the parliament or dismiss the prime minister? This has been the case in Pakistan for example. Pakistani presidents have used this power so well that no prime minister since 1985 could finish their term, and none of them faced a confidence vote in parliament.

Is that something we want for Bangladesh? Plus, the parliament is directly elected, whereas the president is currently elected by the parliament. If an indirectly elected president is given the power to dissolve the popularly elected parliament, isn’t there a contradiction in representative nature of the system?

A less radical idea is to empower the president with a veto power over specific legislations. In addition, whereas the current system can in effect mean that the president is hand-picked by the prime minister (with disastrous consequences — the incumbent president). If a parliamentary form of government is maintained, but the president is given some reserve powers, then perhaps the choice of presidency should be made bi-partisan?

Or perhaps we should also elect presidents directly, as is the case in France? In the French system, it is possible for the presidency and the prime ministership to come from different parties. Is such a regime of cohabitation practicable in Bangladesh? Everyone knows about the mutual animosity of the current (and beleaguered) party chiefs. But even in the 1940s and the 1950s, mutual antagonism between HS Suhrawardy and Fazlul Huq wrecked more than one government.

Plus, if we are to have a popularly elected president, then why not move to a full-blown presidential system?

Presidential system

If the parliament is made more powerful through the Article 70 and committees, then why not move to a full-blown presidential system?

Admittedly, our experiences with presidential systems have not been very good. But then again, our experiences with the parliamentary system have not been very good either. So why not, indeed, move to a presidential system?

National security council

Finally, many have suggested a national security council comprising of the president, prime minister, and crucially, chief of defence forces. While details vary, most proposals of this ‘Turkish model’ involve the council have some sort of extra-ordinary power over the elected representatives. To those not concerned about the anti-democratic nature of these proposals, I ask: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, bicharpotir bichar korbe kara?

How will the constitution be amended?

The strongest argument against the presidential system (as well as repealing the Article 70 and giving president more power) is that these will require constitutional amendments. And it is fundamentally undemocratic to bind a future elected government to constitutional reforms enacted by the current unelected regime.