The parliamentary form of government in Bangladesh is rooted in the
Constitution of 1972. Since then 13 amendments have been added, mos
important being the 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th, and 13th, incorporating the
changes: (4th) from the Indian parliamentary type to the Frenc
presidential form, and the establishment of a one-party system (St
deleting secularism as one of the basic principles of state policy and
incorporating a part of a Koranic verse in the Preamble; (8th) declaring
Islam the state religion; (12th) repealing the 4th amendment and returning
to the original parliamentary form; and (13th) provision of a nonpartisan
caretaker government to conduct every general election.
The salient features of the Bangladesh Parliament under the 1972
Constitution resemble the Indian type more than the British, with the
exception of the 13th amendment. Indeed, the executive power of the
republic is vested in the office of the prime minister, although there is
president indirectly elected by Parliament every five years who “shall act
in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister”. The president is
empowered to appoint the leader of the majority as prime minister, accept
the latter’s resignation for lack of majority support, or dissolve the
Parliament upon the latter’s advice. Like the American Presidential form,
it takes only a majority vote to impeach the president and two thirds to
remove him from office. The 4th Amendment, which has since been
repealed, required a two thirds majority to impeach and three-fourths
majority to remove the president.
House of the Nation, vesting in it all legislative powers and allowing
The Constitution provides for a unicameral parliament known as the
delegation of rule-making powers to any person or authority. The
membership is set at 300 elected members; originally, 15 nominated seats were reserved for women but this was increased to 30 by Proclamation
Order No. IV of 1978. In the 1991 election these reserved seats proved
crucial for Khaleda Zia and her BNP party in securing an absolute
majority in Parliament. Because the BNP secured only 139 out of 299
contested seats (election in one constituency
candidate’s death), it formed a temporary coalition with the Jamaat-i-
Islami (JI), an ultra-religious party that had won 18 seats, in order to be
able to nominate women for the reserved seats. As a result, the BNP won
28 of the 30 women’s seats and the JI gained two, giving the BNP its
absolute majority. Given the fact that the BNP and AL secured almost the
same percentage of electoral votes (31%), the former’s absolute majority
based on the reserved seats fell far short of a mandate (see Table ). The
situation was reversed in the June 1996 elections when the AL, securing
146 seats, needed one parliamentary vote, which promptly came from A.
S. M. A. Rab (JSD), in order to form a government. In percentage of
votes cast, the AL in 1996 won by a wider margin than the BNP in 1991;
37.4% against BNP’s 33.6% (see Table 2).
The legislative procedure of introducing a bill and enacting it into law
follows the Western democratic model with the major significant
difference that no provision is made for any direct or indirect involvement
of parliamentary committees in the law-making process. Every proposal in
parliament, according to Article 80, must be in the form of a bill. The
successful passage of any except a money bill involves its presentation to
the president after it is passed by a majority of members present and
voting, 60 being the quorum. The absence of a presidential veto, even
during the primacy of the presidential system under the 4th Amendment
until its repeal by the 12h, underscores an essentially parliamentary slant
to Bangladesh’s legislative process. The approval of a bill by Parliament
after the president returns it was made significantly more difficult through
Proclamation Order No. IV of 1978, requiring an absolute rather than a
simple majority. Given the fact that President Ziaur Rahman could not be
sure of gaining an absolute majority for his BNP party in the
parliamentary election of 1979, he perhaps considered it prudent to insert
that limitation in the Constitution.
Serious charges of misuse of fiscal powers have been consistently
leveled against different governments by opposition parties over a span
covering seven parliaments. ironically, a strong ombudsman provision
(Article 77) incorporated in the original 1972 Constitution has not been put into operation by any of the parliaments but neither has any of the seven
parliamentarians see the institution as having the potential to diminish their
had the will to delete it. Perhaps like the American case, Bangladeshi
investigations into governmental corruption, including electoral coercion
power by limiting the role of legislative committees dealing with
and vote fraud. Another reason for not establishing
a powerful
ombudsman may be the resistance of the powerful bureaucracy to
accountability and control. In this, a strange bedfellow alliance can be
institutionalizing such a potentially effective mechanism administrative
seen between career administrators and political leaders who have been
overtly advocating reduction in both the power and size of the
bureaucracy. The apparent self interest driven alliance seems to have
included the nouveau riche, who shy away from any effective probe into
certain questionable business, banking, and stock market practices. To
what extent the powerful, independent Election Commission, provided for
under the 1972 Constitution and further strengthened by two acts of
parliament in June and November 1994 and finally by the 13th
Amendment in 1996, would be able to allay the fears of opposition parties
is less doubtful now that a caretaker government for the second time
successfully held a relatively free and fair general election.
REFORM MEASURES
An important reform of the committee system has been initiated by the
new Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, and her “consensus” government. A
joint committee has been set up with opposition MPs to look into ways of
improving the law-making process, and as an important first step, the
traditional practice of cabinet members chairing different standing
committees has been ended. Under the new parliamentary rules, all chairs
of standing committees are elected. This is more in tune with the reformed
committee system of the U.S. Congress, which interestingly, has an
ongoing training program for third world legislative leaders. Sheikh
Hasina, during her tenure as leader of the opposition in the late 1980s,
certainly benefited from her participation in one such training session in
Washington, D.C.
As for electoral reform, two acts of Parliament provide for mandatory
Election Commission. In order to serve that purpose, the Commission was
voter registration with individual picture IdS and greater autonomy of the
made directly accountable to Parliament. The administrative functions of
Parliament were brought under a separate secretariat, making the re organization efforts, Parliament has been given crucial training,
gislative body relatively independent of the national bureaus,
and the Asia Foundation. Under the auspices of the Asia Foundation,
echnical support by some donor agencies, particularly USA,
number of Election Commission officials have been sent Thailand
the computerized voter identity system, and in this connection,
American electronic vote tabulation expert, Ralph Heikkila, bas bes
brought in as chief consultant of the electoral computerization prog
Heikkila is credited with developing the electronic computer voting syste
for Los Angeles in the early 1970s which was later used as a mod by
various other U. S. cities. The estimated cost of hiring 700,009
enumerators needed to put the computerized system into operation would
be at least US$60 million, excluding hard/software and consulting
expenses. In essence, the cost of developing and using an effective
mechanism to reduce significantly the chances of electoral miscalculations
and fraud may very well run into millions of dollars. To what extent
Bangladesh and its foreign donors are willing to make that kind of fiscal
commitment remains to be seen.
THE MILITARY FACTOR
With a view to maintaining support of the armed forces for the new
democratizing process and thus avoiding a possible coup, the acting
president of the first caretaker government in 1991 tactfully left the
military bureaucracy alone. Indeed, without the initial support of senior
military officers, such as Lt. General Nuruddin Khan (who won a
parliamentary seat on an AL ticket in the 1996 June election), for the anti-
Ershad mass movement led by an effective coalition of most political
parties, including the two largest ones, the coalition efforts could have
dragged on, making it increasingly difficult for the parties to sustain the
intensity of the movement. The movement would not have fizzled out as in
1987, but even lukewarm support for Ershad by military leaders would
have given Ershad adequate opportunity to ensure at least his own security
through a realignment of factions within the military, if possible, and
certainly through a rearrangement of incriminating pieces of evidence
against himself. Fighting the interim government held elections from
outside the jail could have made an enormous difference for him in
influencing the electoral outcome much more to his liking.
By withholding their support for Ershad and subsequently allowing his
incarceration, the military leaders attempted to distance themselves from the president, thereby using him as a scapegoat for the political
economic corruption of nine years of military rule. Given the
circumstances in which Ershad felt confident in continuing Ziaur
Rahman’s policy of militarizing the society, military leaders chose to
protect their vested interests by using Ershad to deflect the public wrath
against the military as a developing institution. Lacking support from t
army officers and as well from the rank and file, Ershad failed to get the
benefits of warning signals from military intelligence organs such as
Director General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI); Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI), and National Security Intelligence (NSI), Mujib was a
victim of obstructed intelligence communication caused by personnel
changes, Ziaur paid the ultimate price for disregarding intelligence
warnings, and Ershad fell partly because he was perceived as a threat to
the military institution and, in particular, to the power of military
intelligence agencies, The degree of political maturation of the military as
a developing institution became apparent in May 1996. In order to protect
its institutional interest, the military leadership gave the civilian president
crucial support in putting down an attempted coup by the army chief,
General Mohammad Nasim, in May 1996. The coup against President
Abdur Rahman Biswas failed because the intelligence agencies and a few
commanders felt that both Bengalis and external donors did not want it,
and going against their wishes might hurt the growing legitimacy of the
Bangladesh military. Given the history of military rule in Bangladesh, it becomes doubly
important for the emerging democratic forces to make persistent efforts to
contain the propensities for political domination by the military and is
intelligence arm. To achieve that goal and sustain the process
democratization, the civilian government must transform itself from a sta
of incremental existence to a viable consensus building body wi
needs to present a united front of political parties and professiona
achievable programs of reform, and to realize that, the civilian leadership
occupational communities, thus reducing the influence of street agitation L
on politics. This could also reduce the SOURCE: Election Commission.
NOTE:Total votes: 56670022; total number of votes cast: 42418262 O
74%.
military’s control over the public sector, if not an immediate
demilitarization of the Bangladesh polity. Such a cooperative political
organizational move could have a positive effect on hitherto unorganized
professional occupational categories of people, thereby reducing
significantly the destabilizing impact of street agitation.
THE 1991 AND 1996 GENERAL ELECTIONS
and
In 1991 AL secured 88 as against the BNP’s 140 seats but the margin of
popular votes separating AL from BNP was less than one percent. AL a
its breakaway faction, BAKSAL, which had aligned with AL in the
electoral fight along with seven other minor political parties using the
same electoral symbol, and which in August 1991 merged with the AL,
⚫ together won more popular votes than the BNP (Table 1). The situation
was reversed in 1996, with AL winning 146 against BNP’s 116, and a
greater percentage of popular votes (Table 2), Perhaps the likely reasons,
among other, for this electoral reversal were:
1. negative voting against some of the AL candidates in 1991 and against
some BNNP candidates in 1996;
2. more effective electoral alliance in 1991 between the BNP and the
Jamaat-I-Islami Party (JI) than between AL and its combines,
including BAKSAL and the Communist party of Bangladesh (CPB); the BN in 1996 failed to get support from the JI and the civil and military bureaucracy;
3. issue-oriented campaign of the BNP leadership in 1991; its deviation
from issues coupled with the failure of impression management
benefited AL candidates in 1996;
4. overconfidence of the AL and BNP leaderships about the electoral
outcomes of 1991 and 1996.general election, respectively, which
affected adversely the intensity of the final stage of their campaigns;
5. AL leadership’s denunciation of Zia ur Rahman in 1991, who was
widely admired by the Bangladeshis; BNP leadership’s aspersions on
Mujib in 1996, because with the passage of time Mujib’s role as the
founder of the Bengali nation was being increasingly recognized by
Bangladeshis with a prick of guilty conscience for not rising in protest
at his assassination and the murder of most of his family members in
6. greater appeal of Khaleda Zia among the young citizenry, mainly
because of her uncompromising stand against Ershad, and the support
she enjoyed among women voters in 1991; her rapidly eroding
electoral support in 1996 due to her uncompromising stand against
caretaker government conducted general elections; the assassination of
an AL candidate just before the election in which certain members of
the BNP’s inner circle were implicated, and her failure to protect
basic human rights, particularly of women and children;
7. Sheikh Hasina’s lapses in recapitulating the specific reform measures
slated on the AL platform for the realization of Mujib’s (popularly
called the friend of Bengal or Bangabondhu) dream of a “Golden
Bengal” in 1991, compensated for in 1996 by her bold stand on the
issue of holding elections through neutral caretaker governments and
her public apologies for any mistakes of the last AL government.
The rightist party JI, won 18 seats in the 191 parliamentary election,
perhaps partially due to its last minute alliance with the BNP. It was
electorally significant not because it received 8 more seats than in the 1986
election but because its 18 votes enabled the BNP to get 28 of the 30
reserved seats for women, thus giving it an absolute majority in
Parliament. In 1996 Jamaat won only 3 parliamentary seats, chiefly
because women rejected it for its stand against women’s rights. Moreover, Azam and other I leaders with Pakistan in the Bengali war of
Pakistani military repression and the alleged collaboration of Gholam
the election of Gholam Azam as the party chief revived bitter memories of
independence. This and a failed alliance with the AL and other opposition
parties further hurt the JI in the 1996 general elections.
The Jatiys Party(JP) managed to win 35 seats in 1991, with its leader
five constituencies while serving a 10 years prison term for that
Ershad in jail for the possession of an unlicensed firearm and winning in
conviction. This underscored the importance of constituency cultivation by
fighting the election from prison, but the JP lost two of his four vacated
individual leaders. In 996 Ershad again won five parliamentary seats,
unconditional support to Hasina resulted in his conditional release from
seats in the September by elections, bringing its total to 30. But Ershad’s
jail, the inclusion of his party’s secretary general, Anwar Hussain, in
Hasina’s “consensus” cabinet, and 3 reserved women’s seats.
Twelve parties and the independents out of 63 parties and hundreds of
independents contesting the election won parliamentary seats in 1991. But
in 1996, out of 76 parties, only five parties and one
independent won
seats. AL and BNP with 146 and 116 seats, respectively, emerged as the
major players, underscoring a trend toward a two party system. This may
be a double edged sword. It could offer the people a greater opportunity
for political stability or, lacking an understanding of the authority and
responsibility of majority rule, such political competitiveness could also
have a destabilizing effect. Even with a considerably reduced chance of
any future military takeover of the civilian government, the possibility of
future gridlock between the AL and BNP leadership citing such grievances
as unequal air time, insufficient representation in parliamentary
committees and legal harassment of BNP party workers. Fortunately, the
parliamentary boycott ended in January with a four point accord with the
AL, but the accord seems to be collapsing due to serious differences
between the two over Bangladesh’s relations with India, particularly
concerning the recently contracted water treaty, land transit facility, and
tribal policies.
Besides the possibility of another parliamentary crisis, the pursuit of
justice by the AL government in regard to the assassination in Aug
1975 of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, the elected leader of Bangladesh, a
the massacre of his family could also have a destabilizing effect on t
Bangladesh polity. It has already opened up a Pandora’s box a number of Al leaders in the coup that led to the
assassinations. Moreover, the Post coup parliament, which enacted the
responsible for the coup and coup related incidents, was dominated by the
Indemnity Bill in September 1975 giving quasi legal protection to those
With the repeal of the Indemnity Act on November 12, 1996, many
more arrests could be made in addition to persons already in custody such
as Colonels (ret.) Farook Rahman ad Shahriyar Rashid Khan, ex Minister
Taheruddin Tahakur, and a few former junior commissioned officers.
Among other leaders, Khandakar Mushtaque Ahmed, who allegedly
masterminded the coup and the assassination of Mujib, has died and the
rest are on the run. Those who were absorbed into the diplomatic corps by
General Ziaur Rahman, creator of the BNP party itself are reportedly
seeking political asylum in selected countries. Their diplomatic postings
under the BNP government and the floating of the Freedom Party by
Farook Rahman and Colonel Abdul Rashid, particularly the attempted
recognition of Rashid, who was elected to the Sixth parliament on the
Freedom Party ticket, as de facto leader of the opposition in that short
lived Parliament, did cast some doubt on the roles of top military officers,
s Safiullah, Ziaur Rahman himself, and Khaled Mosharraf, among
others, in that August coup. Curiously enough, Safiullah has already been
inducted as a senior member of Prime Minister Hasina’s “consensus”
cabinet. No doubt that justice delayed is justice denied but approaching
such an explosive issue with caution and moderation, particularly after a
time lapse of 21 years, would have established a sounder basis of justice
for all. The Supreme Court’s ruling on an appeal from the defendants on
January 29 found Parliament’s repeal of the Indemnity Act to be
constitutional, paving the way for open court trials of the defendants. To
prevent any probability of a witchhunt, the AL leadership would be well
advised to form a bipartisan special parliamentary committee to monitor
the investigatory process.
Conclusion
The issue of a constitutional amendment to provide for a nonpartisan,
caretaker government for the specific purpose of holding a general election
every five years may not wait for moderation. Such elections every five
years, or when necessary, could yield positive results in terms of building
the needed infrastructure to nourish Bengali democracy. But democratic
aspirations are being confronted by the political reality of the incumbent’s propensity to use the powers and resources of the state to ensure electoral
coalition government, strengthening of the Election Commission, and so
victory. As mentioned earlier, the ruling party’s gestures of good intention
government instigated electoral voilence and vote fraud. This is precisely
on may not be enough to allay the fears of opposition parties about
why, despite the question of legitimacy of the Sixth Parliament, the 13th
Amendment to the Constitution mandating caretaker government held
general elections every five years, which took effect during the Sixth
Parliament, was overwhelmingly endorsed by most parties, both
government and opposition.
Democracy is a slow and frustrating process through with the
legitimate hopes, aspirations, expectations, and demands of the people are
transformed into tangible programs of action. Impatience and the lack of
moderation and balance can undermine the democratic process, which can
lead to rule by demagogues and/or autocrats. Even if the recent emergence
of parliamentary democracy reflects
the people’s power and
determination, there is no guarantee of its continuation as a viable system.
The events of 1975 and 1982 can be repeated. It is imperative, therefore,
for the leaders of democratic forces to tread cautiously, charting a
balanced course of moderation and structural change in the politico
administrative policy making and policy implementing mechanisms. for
equity, justice, and fair play, certain basic values need to be nurtured:
education and training, the dignity of labor, social, and health security,
socio political and religious tolerance. There must be respect for the law,
and for this a hopelessly outdated legal system needs reform. Any
perceptible efforts by the Bengali leadership in this regard would raise
civic consciousness about national and local goals, which in turn could
have a positive effect on the process of internalization of nation building
values. With a sound democratic foundation in place, leaders will be on
surer ground in addressing controversial issues perhaps even risking P
polarization as a last resort to achieve a consensus on making and
implementing national policies.