Editor's Pick

Why only justices ?

30 October 2006, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Zakir Hossain, Bezpara, Jessore
In the constitution only the justices have been given the priority of being caretaker government chief. I think it was a wrong decision. There are many people in the country who may be more efficient, competent and neutral than the justices. I am not saying that justices are not efficient, competent and neutral, but I want to say that they should not be the sole stakeholders of the quality of being a caretaker government chief. There are many educationists, economists, diplomats, lawyers, journalists, social workers, bureaucrats, human rights workers etc. who are not less worthy than the justices. The justices should have been one of the options. The present political standstill has happened only due to this clause.

There is also a problem in the selection process. The selection process could have been more democratic and transparent. The process I want to suggest is like this: The caretaker government chief will have no history of political involvement and s/he will have the minimum educational qualification and administrative experience, and no background of corruption or dishonesty. The political parties and civil societies can determine the minimum qualifications. The selection process will have two phases.

First phase: Existing voters of the country will primarily select their nominees by mobile sms. One person will have only one vote to cast. To ensure it every willing voter will have to register his or her phone number with his or her photo. The numbers registered will be eligible for voting. If one person registers more than one number, computer database will find it out. Then 10 or 20 highest scores will be selected for the second round of voting. But before going to the second phase we need to take the consent of the selected persons. If anybody on the list refuses to contest, his/ her name will be dropped from the list and new name(s) will be included from the list below the earlier cut point on the basis of the number of the votes they have got.

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Second phase: Every political party will have one vote and the party chief or anybody nominated and endorsed by him/her will cast the vote. Here the ballot will contain just the names of the selected 10/20 persons and the voters will just put tick mark against the name s/he likes. S/he will put tick mark against the name of only one person.

Every political party has to be registered with the Election Commission. To get registered as a political party a willing group has to fulfill some conditions that will stop the registration of many parties which represent a single party to influence the voting by having too many voters.

Then the highest scorer in the second round will be selected the caretaker government chief. Here a portion of the votes of the first phase can be counted.

This system will not allow an uneducated citizen or a non-cell-phone-holder to take part in the selection process. But I think it will be more democratic than the existing process.
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