People outside of Dhaka want local government election first

While there is discussion on parliamentary elections at the national level, local government elections are being prioritised in the views of people living outside Dhaka.

The local government reform commission came across this picture while exchanging views outside Dhaka. Chief of the commission professor Tofail Ahmed said this during a view exchange with journalists yesterday, Monday.

The interim government formed the local government reform commission on 18 November. The commission is supposed to submit a report to the chief adviser within the next 90 days of its formation. The reform commission is exchanging views with stakeholders in and outside of Dhaka to prepare the reform proposals.

As a part of that, the reform commission exchanged views with journalists at the conference room of the National Institute of Local Government (NILG) in Agargaon area of the capital Monday.

Responding to a question from journalists during the view exchange, Tofail Ahmed said that from the views they are finding outside Dhaka the local government elections are being prioritised among people there. However, there’s not much discussion about this among the politicians in Dhaka.

Local leaders of the parties that are demanding early elections are talking about both elections. Some are talking about local government elections first while some are talking about national and local government elections on the same day. But he commented that the demand for national elections is lower at the local level.

Tofail Ahmed said the people at the local level feel that they are experiencing a vacuum. They are not receiving services and they do not know who to go to. So, they are thinking that the local government elections should be held now. Local leaders of different political parties also share this view.  

Earlier, the suggestion of holding local government elections before the national elections came up in several view exchanges of the election reform commission as well. However, no commission has made any recommendations in this regard yet. The government did not make any statement on this topic either.

An interim government was formed after the fall of autocratic Sheikh Hasina government in the face of student-people uprising in last August. Once the Awami League government fell, many local government representatives also went into hiding. And, the interim government dismissed most of the local government representatives later.

So far there has been no statement from the government on the issue of when the elections of local government institutions will be held next. Chief adviser professor Muhammad Yunus has given a hint about a deadline for the national elections. The national elections may be held at the end of this year or in the first half of next year.

BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told Prothom Alo that all other tasks can also be carried out after holding the national elections first. A decision should be taken on this through discussions with political parties, the election commission and the civil society.

Jatiya Nagorik Committee spokesperson Samantha Sharmin told Prothom Alo, “A collapsed situation has been going on now. To get out of this situation, we should gradually move on to the local government elections and then the national elections step-by-step. This way, we’ll understand how the elections are going and what the procedures are. If there is criticism about them, there remains the scope to fix them later.”

However, many of the political analysts believe that if local government elections are held first, there may be a crisis in the preparations of the national elections.

Political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman told Prothom Alo that although it’s true that people are not receiving many local government services properly now, holding all the local government elections across the country is a huge undertaking. These elections are held in stages.

Now, if the election commission starts preparing for local government elections, there may be a shortfall in the preparations of the national elections. The chief adviser has in fact given instructions for the national elections.

Zahed Ur Rahman also said that the elections of a few local government institutions may be held on trial basis before the national elections. How the current election commission manages the elections, do the Awami League leaders and activists join the elections anonymously or what the law and order situation would be like can be observed through this.

He however personally feels that the local government elections should generally be held after the national elections with a party government in power. That could be a test on how the election commission conducts elections under a party government.

The chief of the local government reform commission Tofail Ahmed said that they are deliberating on quite a few reform proposals. For example, there’s the idea of not electing the chairman or mayor for a local government institution directly, rather electing members only and the members can elect a mayor or chairman later.

Other ideas include abolishing the system of contending in elections with party symbols, making the elections for the posts of members open to all so that everyone including government and private sector employees can run for it, and formulating a unified law for all sorts of local government institutions.

He said that it’s also being considered if elections for all the local government institutions in an area can be held on the same day. This will reduce the cost of holding elections. As much as Tk 230 billion (Tk 23,000 crore) has been spent on various local government elections between 2021 and 2024. If the elections were held on the same day, it would have been possible to conduct them at a cost of Tk 6 billion (Tk 600 crore) only.

Tofail Ahmed said that the commission is giving special thoughts on the local government system of the three hill tracts districts. He said that they are looking into the obstacles to the zilla parishad elections in those three districts. There have been no local government elections in the three hill-tract districts since 1989.

Various suggestions including making local government elections independent without party involvement, increasing the salaries and benefits of local government representatives, ensuring that the parliament members cannot control local government institutions, increasing the authority of reserved women members in local government, excluding the provision for winning unopposed, including the ‘no’ vote option, and holding local government elections under the jurisdiction of caretaker government like national elections came up in the exchange of views.