Editor's Pick

Caretaker of democracy

5 December 2006, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Siddiqui, On e-mail
Bangladesh has had three successful elections till now. By successful I mean that in each case the party in power has agreed to peacefully relinquish power after losing in elections -- which is not always the case in developing democracies. Each of these elections was held under the vigilance of a caretaker government and the results were accepted by both the major parties. Due to the success of this system for over a decade it seemed that caretaker system could possibly rank as one more Bangladeshi contribution to the rest of the world in terms of institutional innovation. Such ideas gained more relevance after George Bush won his first election in 2000. The counting and recounting of Florida presidential ballots reminded us of the many similar problems we have and may be some of those problems might not have occurred had the Americans adopted something similar to our approach.

Unfortunately, now, the limits of caretaker system have been exposed and people are having doubts as to its viability. It seemed like a brilliant idea at first: once the elections are over, normal government and normal life resume. Unfortunately, this easy and, seemingly, cheap solution has taken a big casualty: the venerability of the judiciary itself. No longer is it sufficient to have a retired chief justice (or justices) in the caretaker government.

The honourable justices themselves are now discussed and analysed and their neutrality brought into question. That is, the justices themselves are being judged. I don't know how many Bangladeshis realise this or are concerned about it but we are about to lose the sanctity of one of our most respected institutions in the process. I am not blaming any particular party for this, since it is in the nature of things. A chief justice having contact with politics is like a mother superior going to a disco: in the beginning it's lots of fun but it can create problems later. Even if this contact is in the form of a caretaker government.

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I hope that in the end sanity will prevail and we will find some alternative method of protecting our democracy. Until that happens we can only keep our fingers crossed.
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