Dialogue after reform proposal, election later

The government is hopeful that the six commissions for reforms will be able to submit their reports within three months.

The government is thinking of holding election after building up political consensus through dialogue, making specific commitments and bringing amendments in a few cases.

The interim government has formed six commissions for the reformation of election system, police administration, judiciary, anti-corruption system, public administration and constitution. Six persons have been given charge as the chiefs of these commissions. However, no complete commission has been formed yet. The terms of reference, priorities, scope of work, etc, had not been determined till Thursday. However, the chiefs of two commissions have personally given Prothom Alo an idea of which areas they think require reforms.

In the speech given towards the nation on this Wednesday, chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus highlighted an outline of the reforms. The matter also came up in the press briefing following a meeting of the adviser council on Thursday. A journalist mentioned that some reform commissions like this were also formed during the regime of Ershad government but they could not be implemented.

Environment, forest and climate change adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that there are major differences between this government and the Ershad government. This government is the result of a mass uprising. There were two key words behind this mass uprising. One is anti-discrimination and the other is reforms. The objective is to take the country towards an actual democracy. Since this government has fundamental differences with the Ershad government so the work policies, plans and objectives of that government cannot in any way be compared with this one.

Rizwana Hasan also stated that it is being expected primarily that the commissions would be able to submit their reports within three months. Whether these will be implemented at all will depend on the political unity. She said, “On the issue of reforms, we are asking opinions of the political parties as well. The political parties must have had this realisation by now that the Ershad government could not do it and what that resulted in. They too did not make any reforms. And the whole nation saw the result of that on 5 August.”

Mentioning that dialogues would be arranged with the political parties, Rizwana Hasan said, “We are thinking about holding the elections after building up political consensus through that dialogue, making specific commitments and bringing amendments in some specific areas. The political parties themselves have clarified that they want reforms first and then the elections.”

On the issue of the activities and extent of work of the commissions, adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that the chief adviser was going to the United Nations for a few days. The scope of work and an the composition of the commissions will be determined after he returns. It might be take two to three weeks to determine the scope of work. However the government believes that instead of sitting idle, the procedure should start in the meantime. She also stated that the cabinet division would be providing secretarial assistance to the commissions.

All three national elections held during the regime of the Awami League government which remained in power for more than three terms at a stretch, were questionable. There was no need to hold election in 153 seats during the election of 2014. The sole candidates won without any votes. While all the registered parties participated in the eleventh parliamentary elections of 2018, there are allegations that in different places the ballot boxes were already stuffed the night before. The twelfth national elections of 2024 was also one sided. Due to various irregularities in the national and local government elections that continued for more than a decade people have lost their faith in the election system. So, it’s necessary to bring a reformation in the election system.

Chief of the election system reform commission Badiul Alam Majumdar believes that a number of matters need to be taken into consideration and investigated. The election commission appointment act, the existing rules of affidavit submission, the laws relating to national parliament elections, changes in some areas of the representation of the people order and the election commission secretariat act- reforms will be needed in these matters. He added that the once the commission is prepared it will first have discussions with political parties and stakeholders and then finalise the reform proposal to submit it to the government.

According to the existing constitution and the laws there are elections based on the parliamentary constituencies. Instead of that, many are proposing formation of the parliament based on proportional representation system. Apart from that, various discussion including the formation of a bicameral parliament, formation of the provision that no one can serve more than two terms as prime minister, bringing a balance of power between the president and the prime minister, strengthening the parliament even more to strike a balance between the executive branch and the parliament, amending Article 70 of the constitution to make the parliament effective have come up for the well establishment of democracy. To bring a change in these areas, the existing constitution needs to be amended. Besides, the matter whether a new constitution will be drawn up or amendments will be brought in the existing one is also being discussed in the public sphere.

The interim government has talked about the need of constitutional reforms to reflect on the expectations of July mass uprising. Towards that end, senior lawyer Shahdeen Malik has been given charge as the head of the constitution reform commission.

During the regime of ousted Awami League government, there were major complaints about corruption. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) however didn’t take any effective such steps. The interim government has formed a commission for reforms in the elimination of of corruption. Executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Iftekharuzzaman is the chief of this commission.

Iftekharuzzaman told Prothom Alo on Thursday afternoon that he has not been briefed about the terms of reference of the commission yet. However, most of the problems are known already. Primarily he believes that the policy of appointing ACC commissioner needs to be reformed. Since the commissioners are recruited on political consideration, the allegations against ruling party members are not investigated. Besides, the ACC is held hostage by the bureaucracy and reformation is needed here. However it’s not that just having an ideal anti-corruption commission by bringing various reforms will make it effective. It is necessary to have political and bureaucratic changes as well an environment of accountability.

Three more commissions have been formed among the six reform commissions. Of them, former secretary Safar Raj Hossain will head the police administration reform commission, Justice Shah Abu Naeem Mominur Rahman will lead the judiciary reform commission and former adviser to caretaker government and former bureaucrat Abdul Mueed Chowdhury will lead the public administration reform commission.

Exactly how long will it take for the government to complete these reform activities and implement them is not certain yet. In his speech addressing the nation on this Wednesday evening, chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus said that members of the advisory council, students, workers as well as representatives of the mass movement, the civil society and the political parties would be present in the discussions and consultations of the commissions. After being fully formed, the commission can officially start its activities from 1 October. They are expecting that the commissions will complete their tasks within the next three months.

The chief adviser stated that the government will organise consultation with major political parties in the next phase based on the reports of the commissions. In the final stage, student community and civil society

At the final stage, the reform ideas will be finalised on the basis of a three to seven-day long consultation with the student community and civil society along with representatives from the political parties and the government. An idea of how this outline will be implemented will also be provided from that consultation, he added.