The caretaker government took over power with poise and courage to take on the mismanagement and incompetence of the previous regimes. The good steps taken by the interim government are that they began with bringing down the corrupt politicians and government servants. The investigations followed up the legal cases filed against the corrupt people and the independent judiciary system began its new life.
   The caretaker government almost made the political parties believe in ‘reform’ for survival in the aftermath of the emergency rule. The chaos on the street came to a complete halt due to the emergency rule.
   The flood and cyclone that devastated the country during the Fakhruddin government rule were handled with sincerity. The people gave a sigh of relief and the interim government was welcomed. People saw the good work evolving.
   The bad things that started to happen soon after are that the government had no control over the price increase of daily necessities, the government declared two budgets without the approval of the parliament, showed ‘favouritism’ when detaining high-profile politicians, spared the people having close link with the powers that be. They kept violating the constitution and prolonging the rule beyond 90 days. Declaring local elections before national polls and detaining people for months without being able to prove their guilt in the court of law are among the other negative aspects.
   In addition to all these, the advisers, including the chief adviser, have never provided their wealth statements to the government and the money and wealth recovered from the suspects were never accounted for properly or never made pubic. With each passing day, the government attitude is becoming erratic.
   Tanvir
   USA

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), ATM Shamsul Huda, lamented the lack of ‘quality’ candidates for the coming city corporation mayoral elections despite having gone to the effort of sponsoring public debates amongst the contestants (New Age, July 22).
   This is countered by widespread allegations of ‘campaigning under the banners of political parties, spending of black money and intimidation by hired thugs’ by a number of candidates for the Rajshahi Mayor (Daily Star, July 22). Speakers representing 12 of the 15 candidates who attended a meeting organised by the returning officer for Rajshahi claimed that ‘honest, educated and competent candidates are at a disadvantage due to the authorities’ indifference toward the violations of the code of conduct.’ Interestingly, the three remaining contestants, associated with the local branches of the Awami League, BNP and Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh, did not care to attend the said meeting!
   Speakers in the same meeting also complained of the election authorities of being double faced: bragging about the rules and then bending them at will and thus sending out mixed signals about their seriousness. This apparent lax attitude not only goes as far as turning a blind eye to major parties endorsing their chosen candidates, injection of black money to hire thugs to run smear campaigns but also to the allegation that many public servants are taking part in campaign work in exchange of money. Sadly, I was reminded of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe when I read about one of the hopefuls stating that, ‘Hired goons of the present councillors who are also contesting the polls are threatening to kill us.’
   When asked about the gross flouting of the rules, Huda said, ‘The situation is satisfactory as we are not seeing any wall writings, street showdowns and use of microphones in the election areas.’ The EC did not take any action against the political parties for their overt involvement in the local government polls even though activities like selecting candidates were in contravention of the electoral rules ‘in efforts to create a congenial atmosphere for the elections.’
   Thus it would seem that the CEC has only himself to blame for the lack of ‘quality’ candidates. Unless he is being naive or else he thinks everyone else is naive, it is hard for me to believe that a person of his stature does not know that merely driving ‘wall writings, street showdowns and use of microphones’ underground is not enough to cleanse the rotten practice — polished over decades to perfection — of the feudal and dynastic political machinery in Bangladesh. Furthermore, I am sure his expected spontaneous outpour of ‘quality’ candidates is not helped one bit by the recent emboldening of the very criminals that ran Bangladesh by the pathetic failure of our invertebrate justice system in punishing them. Instead we are witnessing a circus where one detained bigwig after another is lining up to escape in the name of ‘medical treatment abroad’ because they are too weak to even attend their trials. Once outside Bangladesh, they seem to undergo miraculous overnight recovery not only to make speeches about ‘democracy’ they helped turn into a dictatorial dynasty but also relentlessly fly around the globe attending family weddings and celebrations as if to say that they indeed are untouchables — and to hell with ‘fair’ elections in Bangladesh!
   Shabbir A Bashar, PhD
   Vancouver, USA