A free and fair election for nothing
Since its inception 37 years back, Bangladesh has a very good track record of conducting free and fair election for the most part. All of these elections were under microscopic watch of the European Community, other international election monitoring agencies and human rights organizations. And it is they who ratify whether elections conducted were free and fair or not. The losing party might have stated some negative remarks but that did not resonate further from any other reckonable corner. Now the question is, what we practically achieved from all those well conducted free and fair elections? Could the people of this country fulfill their long-cherished aspirations? Could we institutionalize our political or ethical values? Some might say it is the opposite. They will point at the institutionalization of corruption at all levels under the cover of democratic practice. We may wind up from the proverb that those elections were "free and fair, but fruitless in real terms". A bunch of hungry looters were released to loot the motherland for 35 years which we liberated shedding blood of 3 million people. There was probably a huge and constant miscalculation between national interest and party interest. A leader does not run the country alone. He/she needs a group of sane advisers; this is where we suffered the most. Every time we had leaders from a bunch of bottomless corrupt individuals. These extremely subtle hypocrites occupy the decision making positions and the resultant effect is the undue sufferings of the people. Finally, it leads to a landslide defeat of the ruling party at the end of their term. With due respect to our leadership, it is only the hyper, personally loyal mid level party leaders who practically turn democratic practice into democratic hooliganism. We all have to accept the fact that a looter cannot be a leader, nor can a true leader ever be a looter. Let us analyze why so painfully conducted free and fair elections failed over and over again to fulfill democratic expectation of the people. Number one rationale is that, our political arena has been made so dirty that a good citizen with all leadership potential feels comfortable to stay away. In a democracy, trying to go to power is a legitimate effort for an independent candidate or for any political party. But in our case, the style or the methodology adopted in going to power is the beginning of all the sufferings. The second rationale is, during nomination as part of election campaign plan, the selection committee prefers a muscleman than a benign intellectual who can apply multidimensional subterfuge to win over his/her seat and help the party into power. The third rationale is the aspect of the voters. A voter of a third world country chooses his leader on number of counts. One may vote a criminal candidate just because that candidate paid more money than the other. Voters may disregard a candidate's character just because of his party affiliation. A voter may choose to select a leader with the dirtiest possible character because of his personal acquaintance with him. Here consideration of selecting an honest leader is a far cry. If we desire to get out of this predicament we need to adopt some dynamic steps, which is very easy to apply but very difficult to comprehend by decision makers, processed through a protracted period of corrupt environment. Corrupt environment is the killing ground for dynamic ideas, whereas honest environment (western world) acts as breeding ground for ideas and dynamism. Human perception is always subject to change under subtle manipulation of psychological warfare (psy ops) techniques. This is a faculty of knowledge confined to developed countries only. They are fortunate that their leadership conceived the idea of psy ops and now they have institutionalized it. Today a developed country solves its political, ideological or social problems at philosophical level, whereas for not having a clear comprehension about psy ops potentials, we try to solve our perennial problems at physical level. That is why we often see the presence of law enforcing agencies on different occasions which is hardly seen in the developed world. If the general mass is not law abiding it is none of their fault, it is the leaders' who failed to make them law abiding. That way, a high percentage of people have become morally corrupt. The leaders failed to provide them an honest environment. We are probably yet failing miserably to conceive the strategy as to how to start a full throttle anti-corruption campaign with the purpose of creating an honest environment. A person's perception towards politics, political leaders or in selecting his future leader can be easily changed provided decision makers can revolutionize their insight on psy ops. Perception of general mass can be changed by applying modern techniques of psy ops. Even an illiterate can select the right kind of leader provided we help him choose the best without being biased. Decision makers have to believe in the dynamism of change and new ideas. The people of USA are voting Barrack Obama because of one most important reason: he committed people for a change. He has a valid strategy which people believe, he has a very good chance of executing on ground. If we conduct seminar, workshop, symposium and keep asking people to rise against corruption, to come forward to stop corruption, to join an anti-corruption revolution or long march all are OK but the question is do we have a valid strategy to make them march forward or rise against corruption? If we fail to develop a genuine strategy with scalable and measurable result oriented model, all those that we are speaking in seminars are indeed wasting a "once in a life time opportunity" offered by nature. After 1/11 we made visible success in hunting down the top corrupt tycoons but what have we achieved in changing the corrupt mindset or in creating honest environment? What change have we made in the perception of the voters in selecting honest leaders in future election of 2008? Under the circumstance, are we not proceeding towards the same direction where we had been grueling for last 37 years? The unfortunate reality is, protracted corrupt environment create leaders who can never see beyond parochial self-interest and an unquenchable thirst for wealth and power. Man in any capacity of power wants to be an institution by himself; none is interested to build an institution for the party or for the nation. That is why USA today can find lot of young leaders to lead their country as president, but alas! What to speak of the country, we do not even find an alternative to run our parties? In the military, with the change of battlefield scenario, commanders have the prerogative to bring about a change in his combat teams according to the size, shape and situation of the target. In civil bureaucratic environment it is difficult to attain that flexibility. If by chance we accept that to ensure a better democratic environment we need to change the election perception of our people. In that case we need a well thought out and well organized campaign plan. The first expected question will be - who will tie the bell to the cat? There is no such ministry to do that kind of job. All our ministries have their specific charter of duty. And at the end of the day the worst and most pathetic question could be - do you think it is really possible to change the perception of the people? This is how dynamism of change goes into trash in the third world. If the boss does not understand or comprehend a thing, that can never be a good or practical idea - what a fallacy! If we need honest leadership for the development of our country there is no alternative but to change the political perception of our people. In absence of that, repetition of a free and fair election will always end up, never for something but for nothing. The author is a freelancer.
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