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A Bangladeshinfo.com Analysis
Despite verbal overtures and pep
talks for making democracy
institutionalised, the difference
between the ruling and the
opposition political camps is
raising high day by day even in the
first year of the regime.
This has once again been implied
when the governing BNP-led coalition
extended olive branch to Awami
League to join the Parliament and
the main opposition party outright
rejected such move as eyewash
effort.
And cooperation between the main
power contenders and a resulting
participatory democracy remains a
far cry for the nation that is
desperately looking for ways and
means to overcome the abject poverty
of all kinds.
Democracy, the present form of
Westminster government, in
Bangladesh is only decade-old and it
is yet to take its root at various
segments of the society, not to
mention vulnerability of each
institution.
At this stage, the major political
parties are entangled in such a
tussle, which even they themselves
do not afford to do, let alone the
cost that the nation has to pay for
the party leaders' petty personal
ego-centric duel. Or else, they
should have shown certain tolerant,
mental maturity and relatively sound
behaviour to each other so that
democracy could really bud through a
fair practice.
The latest indication by the Prime
Minister's Parliamentary Affairs
Adviser Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury
to bring AL to the House in its
budget session hardly drew any
enthusiasm even in the media simply
because the opposition is unlikely
to respond to that as he has some
sort of credibility crisis even in
his own front following the
pre-polls tussle with the party's
top brass. So, there are huge
communication gap and mistrust
plaguing the country's two main
political fronts, which have been
dictating the course of democracy
for the last 10 years and onwards.
Playing their role both as ruling
and opposition parties, the two
fronts have used a lot of trump
cards and, present scenario
indicates, they left no magic card
available to make any effective
political discourse to mend the
situation with which political
scientists could conduct research.
Perhaps, the parties in Bangladesh
do not know their role as
parliamentary opposition parties
since they eye only on power and put
their all efforts either to go to
power or to cling to it. They forget
that the opposition is a part and
parcel of the parliamentary form of
government and the opposition has a
critical role to play inside the
House.
No doubt, the successive governments
lack sincerity to involve the
opposition in the process of
governance and at the same time, the
opposition commonly shows
frustration for their role as
opposition and could not come up
with constructive criticism against
the governmental activities as
shadow government and make the
practice of democracy effective and
meaningful.
The parties are facing them as
belligerents and it is difficult to
say where the nation is heading for
under their leadership lacking a
clear sense of direction for the
future.
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