- Jyoti Rahman
Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure — that’s an aphorism popularly, and possibly inaccurately, attributed to Mark Twain. But sometimes, figures don’t quite tell the truth either. For example, great apes apparently share 98 percent of their DNA. Apes are, however, not quite 98 percent human! A campaign in social media suggesting that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is resolutely reformist because it has agreed with 618 out of 691 reform proposals is another example where figures don’t quite tell the whole truth.
The fact is, the sheer number of proposals and how many are agreed upon matters far less than where there is disagreement, why, and how we find a way to bridge the gap!
Let’s take a step back to remember exactly why we need constitutional reforms. Even during the 1991-2011 era of elected democracy, our highly centralized political system concentrated powers in the person and persona, of the prime minister. In that system, losing an election could, and often did, put not just one’s livelihood but all too often the very life at risk.
This winner-takes-all, zero sum politics did not necessitate the Hasina despotism. But it did make Bangladesh vulnerable to authoritarianism. That is why BNP had put institutional and constitutional reforms at the center of its forward agenda, which was taken up by the student leaders last monsoon and the interim government since then.
There are two ideas proposed by the BNP where there is agreement between the parties at a high level, but considerable differences in detail. One of these ideas coukd significantly reduce the risk of authoritarianism. It’s not even clear what the other one would achieve. And our public discourse is dangerously focusing on the second one.
By mid-2010s, the BNP had come to realise that electoral politics in Bangladesh would disproportionately reward people adept at local and street politics at the expense of those who would be better legislators. The former are the people who can organise meetings and rallies before the election, and cater to constituents’ needs after. The latter are the ones who can do the work of standing committees, scrutinising the executive actions and appointments. No one ever wins an election in Bangladesh by pointing to their parliamentary proceedings!
That’s why the party proposed an upper house where people not involved in retail, local politics are involved in governance. There is agreement among all major parties on an upper house, but they differ on how the upper house members would be elected. The BNP wants the upper house numbers to be proportional to the seats won in the lower house, though they have also said that they are open to discussing the matter. The reform proposal, supported by other parties, is that the upper house members would be elected proportionate to the votes received by the parties in the election for the lower house.
To put that in concrete terms, suppose in a future election the BNP were to win 41 percent of votes in the election and 207 seats (their record in 1979). The government is formed on the basis of the lower house numbers, and since BNP enjoys an absolute majority, it can run a strong government to implement its policies and programmes, and pass budgets and most legislations. It can also pass a constitutional amendment bill in the lower house through its two-thirds majority.
Suppose passing the constitutional amendment in the upper house also requires a two-thirds majority; in that case, under BNP’s preferred method, they would have 69 of 100 upper house seats, whereas under the alternative, they would have 41. This difference is crucial—the first method will leave us at the mercy of a future would-be despot, whereas the second one can significantly reduce the risks of brute majoritarian despotism.
Further, suppose that appointments to the institutions of accountability — the Election Commission, Human Rights Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission, Public Service Commission, and so on — are to be approved by the upper house. Under BNP’s preferred method, anyone selected by the government (that is, the prime minister) would be automatically approved by the upper house. To expect anything otherwise is too naive in our political culture. However, under the alternative, the ruling party would need to convince at least 10 upper house legislators of the merits of their appointments. Again, the difference is crucial.
With a PR upper house, parties would need to collaborate with each other, and over time, the politics of confrontation experienced in 1991-2011 could well be replaced by a politics of compromise and collaboration. Under BNP’s preferred method, we will have exactly the same kind of winner-takes-all setting where the opposition will leave the parliament for the streets at the earliest opportunity.
Unfortunately, this crucial issue has not received the public attention that it deserves.
It’s the other idea that the BNP had proposed that has caught the public’s fancy. Perhaps scarred by the failure to stop the farcical elections under Hasina, the BNP had also proposed that no one can be prime minister for two consecutive terms. The reform commission and other parties have gone further, proposing a lifetime maximum of two terms (or ten years) for the PM, and barring the same person from being the prime minister and parliamentary party leader. As the reform commission proposal appears more radical than the BNP’s, the party is castigated as anti-reform, and therefore undemocratic.
The irony is that while they look radical, the reform commission proposals (and BNP’s original idea) are at best a redundant cosmetic change!
Suppose that Hasina had faced a two-term limit and the bar from simultaneously being the party chief and prime minister. She could have easily become the home minister and parliamentary party leader in 2014 and put someone like the current president in the office of prime minister (assuming she wouldn’t simply junk the restrictions). That is, these limits would have been completely ineffective in preventing Hasina’s despotism.
Term limits have not stopped Putin from ruling Russia for a quarter century. He simply stepped down from the presidency to become an all-powerful prime minister. Power is a curious thing, it resides where people believe it resides. Manmohan Singh may have been the prime minister of India for 10 years, but people believed the power resided with Sonia Gandhi.
Suppose BNP were to win three consecutive elections democratically. Tarique Rahman could hold whatever offices he chooses. If one believes the power won’t reside with him because of what is written in the constitution should reassess their understanding of Bangladeshi politics.
Here is an example of how lopsided our reform discourse is. Salahuddin Ahmed, the BNP leader in charge of the reform discussions, faced the media earlier this week on the reform issues. He was confident and congenial, charming even. He faced a lot of questions on all things, including a lengthy discussion on the term limit. But on the upper house? Nothing. Mahdi Amin, Tarique Rahman’s key policy wonk, had appeared on Khaled Mohiuddin show, where they talked about term limits, but not the upper house.
Suppose, Tarique Rahman says tomorrow that his party will accept the lifetime maximum of 10 years for the prime minister and a BNP prime minister will not lead the party in the parliament, but the party will not budge on its stance on the upper house — as things stand, our public discourse will probably hail him as the greatest reformer of our time!
And the failure here is very much one of process. The Consensus Commission was supposed to synthesise various proposals from individual reform commissions, and then get agreements from the political parties on their future implementation. Putting all ideas on a spreadsheet and asking parties to tick and cross may have been useful from an administrative perspective, but where is the public discussion justifying and explaining these proposals? Imagine if Professor Yunus, with his amazing gift of storytelling, injected himself into the reform process and explained why the PR house is the crucial, signature piece of reform being proposed?
Since it is very clear by now that, beyond platitudes, the interim government is not serious about communicating the merits of these proposals, it is now incumbent upon the civil society to coalesce behind a key set of reform ideas, a PR upper house being the most crucial one. Trading off a PR upper house for a term limit would be a very bad deal for democracy.
