THE military-backed interim government’s plans to decapitate our two main political parties — the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League — through forcing their leaders into exile, have been thwarted, at least for now. This apparent success of the political parties and more specifically their leaders was achieved mainly because of the efforts of the AL president, Sheikh Hasina, in mobilising public opinion at home and, importantly, abroad in her favour. Hasina, who was denied passage back to Bangladesh by a major airline on instruction from the interim administration and on whose statements a media gag was placed here at home, proceeded to take her case to the world through a highly effective international media blitz. So successful were her attempts to turn the world opinion in her favour and against the position of this government that the administration was forced into damage control through the lifting of the ban on her return to Bangladesh. At the same time, it was forced to suspend its plans to send the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, to Saudi Arabia, even though it has been widely reported that Khaleda will leave for Saudi Arabia within a few days to ‘perform Umrah’.
   At a time when the government has so openly and embarrassingly backtracked from its earlier stance of expelling from the country its two main political leaders, the ‘disclosure’ of the law adviser, Mainul Hosein, that the actions taken by the government to send the two women into exile were initiated on the advice of certain quarters from within the BNP and the Awami League has generated more questions than answers. The adviser, it seems, was so intent upon shifting the responsibility of the blunder, at least in part, from his government to the political parties, that he failed to realise that the explanation that he was offering for the government’s misadventure was not only wholly inadequate but was also clearly contradictory to his previous comments and those of his fellow advisers to this interim administration.
   This indeed has been the season of blaming politics — be it the politicians, the political parties or political process altogether — for all the problems in our country. The current administration, with its backing from the military, has been on the offensive from its very inception in trying to discredit the existing political parties, and through that, wittingly or unwittingly, the political process as well. While it is true that our major political parties are squarely responsible for the decay of our political and electoral process, this government has made little attempt to differentiate between constructive politics and destructive politics, preferring to ban all politics and choking all democratic space in its efforts to bring peace, harmony and stability back to the country. What this government has repeatedly failed to realise is that proper democratisation of the political and electoral system, which this government claims that it is out to do, can never be achieved by banning all political activity in the country.
   Therefore, every time the suggestion has been made to this government that it cannot bring about the necessary electoral and administrative reforms in a manner which will be sustainable in the long term without constructive engagement with the major political parties, its response that the time had not yet come has only reflected its myopia. The law adviser himself has on several occasions explained to the hordes of journalists who seem to flock to him like bees to honey that his was a ‘non-party’ government, and hence listening to or dealing with the political parties was not its job. The law adviser recently even suggested that the current administration was ‘non-political’. What he meant, of course, is that the current administration is ‘non-partisan’, for all governments are political, but the message there was essentially the same: This government was not in the business of politics and hence not interested in engaging with the political parties. This government, it seems, is not even willing to take the advice of the Election Commission to lift the ban on politics so that the commission can initiate dialogue with the parties on necessary electoral reforms.
   Given that hard-line stance of the government, the law adviser’s recent claim that the two major leaders were only being ejected from the country on the advice of certain members of the parties themselves, apparently because these members feel that internal reforms are not possible within the parties as long as these two women are at the helm, appears utterly inconsistent. Obviously then, a certain dialogue has taken place between the government and the political parties unbeknownst to the public at large and contrary to what the advisers to the government have been telling the public. One wonders, firstly, why the conversations that have been had between the government and the political parties were held under a veil of secrecy and secondly why the government has been telling us one thing and doing another. The people have a right to know who exactly the government has been engaging with within the political parties and what the government’s agenda is with regard to its engagement.
   Furthermore, if the law advisers statement is based on fact, and in the absence of more information, there is little option other than to give him the benefit of the doubt, it must be queried why and since when this government has started acting on the advice of certain members of the same political parties that it has repeatedly blamed for the country’s problems. The law adviser cannot claim that it is a ‘non-political’ government that he is a part of on one day and suggest that the government has been acting on the advice of the political parties, or even of certain politicians, the next. His comments have only contributed to a higher level of confusion in the public mind at a time when the entire political and administrative process is mired in intrigue. The law adviser now owes the country a proper explanation regarding what exactly has transpired behind the scenes that led to the government deciding to exile Khaleda and Hasina abroad in the first place, only to have to retract the decision later in the face of considerable and mounting international pressure.
   It has now not only become clear as daylight, especially after the exile saga, that this government has been trying its hand at political engineering and restructuring of the polity, but it has also become obvious that it intends to do it all in a manner that is non-transparent. Unfortunately, neither of those decisions by the government bode well for the country. If the government must impose reforms on the political parties themselves, it must do so in a transparent way that allows for the public to understand its agenda. The exile saga and all the mystery surrounding it was a diabolical error, and the government must learn its lessons from its short-sighted dig at reforming the leadership structure of the parties.
   This government’s main responsibility is to hold credible elections to the next parliament and it has always been correct in its assessment that free, fair and credible elections are impossible without certain political and administrative reforms being brought about. Yet, it still fails to realise that once the institutions that are necessary for a democracy to function are put in place and empowered, the system itself should correct the problems in the political process. Once a proper system is put in place, the change that is desired will come about organically. Any attempt by the government to impose its own reforms on the political parties will not only confuse its mission, it will also plunge it into troubled waters. One can only hope that this government has the ability to realise when it has overplayed its hand and learn from its mistakes.