After the failure to ascend to democracy and witnessing the worst form of autocracy, the election system features prominently in discussions on the reform agenda of the interim government. When the military dictatorship of Ershad was toppled, elections were supposed to be established as a medium of democratic practice, but both the major parties deviated from that. As a result, the election became a malevolent game of power grabbing. And eventually, Sheikh Hasina's Awami League snatched away people's right to vote, reducing elections to a mere farce.
A simplistic solution to this problem is being put forward -- multiparty democracy in the true sense must be established in the country, emerging out of the two-party political cycle. Also, the proportionate representation concept is being touted as the one and only way to multiparty democracy.
In the proportional representation system, the number of seats a party will get in parliament will depend on the percentage of votes it clinches. In this proportional system, the party may announce its candidates' names in advance, or may choose not to do so. If the name is announced, that will be based on an open list. And if the names are not announced, the votes will be based on the party's names and symbol. Then based on the seats won, the members of parliament will be elected on the nomination of the party chief or through central nomination of the party.
In some countries these two are merged for a representational election system. In our national parliament, the members that are elected in the women's quota are of proportional representation and this is, in a sense, from a closed list. As a result, this creates an incredulous opportunity for even the wives of small parties' leaders to become members of parliament, which is obviously an extreme abuse of the proportional representation system. We have repeatedly seen the consequence of the nominating powers lying solely in the hands of the top leader.
The strongest argument in favour of proportional representation is that in this system, it is almost impossible for any single party to gain absolute majority. In the elections where the voters were able to vote, the difference in votes among the two major parties is never so wide that any one party could win two thirds of the votes. As a result, no party could unilaterally amend the constitution and neither could the prime minister become autocratic.
However, does such an argument bear any relevance after experiencing the farces of the vote-less election of 2014 and the boycotted one-sided election of 2018? If the contestants aren't even allowed in the field, then proportionate representation is no solution. Hoping for qualitative change in politics is futile unless the political parties undergo reforms and organisational democratisation.
The Westminster parliament is still considered the model of democracy. In this model, the 'first past the post' system is still followed. For long in the United Kingdom, power has been changing hands between two parties. In other words, it is caught up in the two-party cycle. However, the role of the parties that come up third and fourth is significant too. There is often the need to form alliance with these parties. And even if not in the government, these small parties receive various state benefits and facilities.
Ironically, the United Kingdom is now suffering from the backlash of proportionate representation. When the UK was a member of the European Union, then representation in the European Parliament was elected on the basis of proportional representation. The member countries themselves can fix the minimum percentage of the votes required for proportional representation. In Cyprus, if you won just 1.8 per cent of the votes, a party of that country could send a representative to the European parliament. This was 5 per cent for the UK. Taking advantage of this low vote ceiling, the extreme right-wing anti-immigrant populist politician Nigel Farage's UKIP became an important factor in politics. He used the European Parliament's allocation and other facilities to his advantage and rose in the political scene. Nigel Farage changed his party's name and now has even become a member of the British parliament in this new guise.
In a joint study carried out by Michael Becher of IE University, Irene Menendez Gonzalez of France's Toulouse University for Advanced Studies and Daniel Stegmueller of North Carolina's Duke University in the US, it was shown that because the UK adopted the proportional representation system for the European elections, the votes of the right-wing populists increased from 12 per cent to 13 per cent (Proportional Representation and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from Electoral System Change in Europe, British Journal of Political Science, 2023).
According to Prothom Alo, the election commission had held dialogues in 2017 with the registered political parties before the Jatiya Sangsad (national election) elections. During those discussions, Jatiya Party, CPB, Bangladesh Islami Front, Islami Andolan Bangladesh, Bangladesh National Awami Party, Biplobi Workers Party, Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) and a few other parties called for elections be held in this system (Proportional representation system in discussion, 15 October 2024). These parties may not be populist parties per se, but they certainly are marginal parties of the left and right.
The votes clinched by most of these marginal parties on a national basis are even less than one per cent. CPB may be a bit higher, but even if the minimum requirement for proportional representation is fixed at 2 to 5 per cent of the votes, this will hardly be of any benefit to them.
If elections are held under the system of proportional representation, it is easy to discern that this will pave an easy path for the fallen autocrat Sheikh Hasina to return to politics
Jamaat is very vocal in favour of proportional representation and the reason is obvious. They are confident that they will stand to gain significantly in this system. If elections are held in the prevailing system, there is all likelihood of BNP and its like-minded allies defeating Jamaat candidates by a more or less good margin. And it is exactly for that reason BNP does not support proportional representation.
Let's come to another study. Michael Albertus of Chicago University and Victor Menaldo of the University of Washington looked into various countries from 1875 to 2004 which had turned from autocracy to democracy, and analysed whether the autocrats had faced trial and, if so, how this was carried out, and if not, why not. In their review of the history of 113 transformations to democracy, there were instances of several transformations in the same one country. Bangladesh's military autocratic ruler General Ershad also featured in their analysis.
Among the various conclusions drawn by this research paper of 2024, 'Dealing with Dictators: Negotiated Democratisation and the Fate of Outgoing Autocrats', it was said that the autocrats who escaped harsh punishment, gained advantage under the constitutions they drew up or later amended constitutions. And the election system of proportional representation also goes in their favour.
If elections are held under the system of proportional representation, it is easy to discern that this will pave an easy path for the fallen autocrat Sheikh Hasina to return to politics. It is clear that under the present system, Awami League's have very neglible success in the election compared to the number of seats it could attain in parliament based on percentage of votes. But if the constitution is amended and a bicameral parliament is formed, the proportional representational system may have an effective role for the representation of various classes and professions in the Upper House.
* Kamal Ahmed is a senior journalist
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir