Election, democratic legitimacy and regime stability in Bangladesh: A case study of the 10th general election

Bangladesh witnessed her 10th General Election held on 05 January 2014 with some remarkable incidents such as major political opposition parties did not take part in the polls hence more than 50% candidates of which mostly from the ruling party were elected MPs uncontested; voters turnout was very low - about 22-26% (www.amadershomoy.com); due to a lack of contesting candidates in some constituencies there was no vote at all!); election ends with chaos; local media, international communities and donor agencies expressed their dissatisfaction about the credibility of the election outcomes and the way election was conducted; and others. However, the ruling Awami League called the election a free and fair one and expressed its satisfaction about the election outcomes. This paper deals with the following research questions: (a) What is the political culture in Bangladesh and how does political culture influence election in the country? (b) Why Bangladeshi regimes feel encouraged to allow ‘electoral engineering’ or fail to meet international standards while conducting elections? (c) What are the consequences when elections fail to meet the necessary level of credibility and how to overcome these problems? The paper is based on empirical data collected mainly from personal observation of the 10th national election in Bangladesh as well as information from the Election Commission’s website and print and electronic media reports about the 10th General Election and democracy in Bangladesh. Data from published secondary sources have also been consulted. This paper argues that Bangladesh democracy is again at the crossroads as the provision of Non-party Caretaker Government (NCG) has been scrapped by the current regime from the Constitution despite resistance from the main opposition block. In fact, the 10th general parliamentary election under party government raised critical questions about the credibility of election, legitimacy of the regime, and stability of the government. The paper further argues that democracy has been provided with little room for expected development by uncouth party politics or political culture in Bangladesh. Although an interim arrangement, called the Caretaker Government system, was introduced for transition from dictatorship into democracy in 1991 and was relatively successful in holding three free and fair elections; it suffered setback in conducting the 4th General Election owing to composition imbroglio and was replaced by a military-backed Caretaker Government. Therefore, this paper draws the conclusion that though electoral system in Bangladesh has been changed from the Caretaker Government system to election under party government system, little qualitative change has taken place in the country’s political system and electoral arena and culture to have credible election, followed by democratic legitimacy and regime stability

Election, political instability and fragile democracy in Bangladesh: Is proportional representation the remedy?

Being one of the most populous countries in the world, Bangladesh has been facing numerous challenges such as poverty, rampant corruption, decay in living conditions, slow economic growth, bad governance, insecurity and of course political conflicts and instability, which are supposed to be met in a democratic polity. After the fall of Ershad‘s military regime in 1990, democracy has been reinstated in the country. But the ―winnertakes-all political culture and mentality of the political elites has resulted in the boycott of parliament by the opposition parties followed by street agitations and general strikes on a regular basis. Thus many scholars argue that democracy in Bangladesh is not working as per the hope and aspiration of the people of Bangladesh. This paper examines the question of whether the Proportional Representation (PR) system can help in institutionalising and strengthening democratic practice in order to achieve political stability and sustained economic growth in Bangladesh. Our findings reveal that there is a need for political reforms, and particularly change from the existing ―Winner-Takes-All (WTA)‖ political system to the PR system in Bangladesh. This is because PR system paves the way for greater participation i.e. seats in the parliament are allocated among parties in proportion to votes they receive. Our data also shows that the PR system will not only grant legitimacy to the party with majority seats in the parliament to rule, but also build stakes for opposition parties to meaningfully participate in parliament by means of committee assignments in proportion to their representation i.e. the percentages of electoral votes and parliamentary seats. This paper further highlightes that the PR political system, which some scholars name it as a system with ‗justice as fairness principle‖, will also help to build a national consensus to resolve the issues of long-standing political contentious in Bangladesh such as appropriate electoral system, institutional framework of the electoral process, political neutrality of the Election Commission (EC), organise open, free and fair election, etc. These are some major political issues which are unresolved in the country for a long time and the PR system may bring a positive change in this respect by transforming traditional behavior of political elites thus making a difference in the quality of life of the citizenry in Bangladesh. The findings of this study also suggest that in order to adopt the PR system in a new democracy like Bangladesh there are also numerous challenges such as: commodification of election, commercialisation of nomination, the issue of geographical representation, instability of the government, etc

Teacher professionalism and role perception in Bangladesh

This study made an attempt to explore professional role orientation of schoolteacher in Bangladesh in terms of their professional performance and motivation. This study shows that well-trained and motivated teachers are the key to any education system but because of the political/ electoral interest in the occupation the government policies toward primary education and teaching occupation in particular are targeted to establish state authority over the activities of teachers and their vocational life. Moreover, primary teachers in Bangladesh belong to trade-union type organization instead of ‘knowledge base’ organization of occupational group. Different political parties backed vocational associations and their distinctive ideologies has resulted lack of interest articulation of the practitioners. At the same time schoolteachers fail to have access into the process of management and delivery of their services and remain powerless. Moreover, mentality of schoolteachers is to attend respective vocational training program only due to system demands and also to get on to a higher pay scale. Their training does not match to the purpose of their occupational development and poor quality of training as well as poor academic competence resulted ineffective teaching in the classroom and de-professionalized teaching occupation in primary sub-sector in Bangladesh. As primary education is nationalized and free, and the state is the ultimate user of the vocational services of primary schoolteachers, thus the power, resources and prestige of primary teaching occupation depend largely on the policies of the Bangladesh state to which it is subject. So, the state has to decide whether it will act as regulator of primary teaching occupation or instruments of its professional advancement

Election, democratic legitimacy and regime stability: evidence from Bangladesh

Bangladesh witnessed her 10th General Election with some remarkable incidents such as major political opposition parties did not take part in the polls hence more than 50% candidates of which mostly from the ruling party were elected MPs uncontested; voters turnout was very low - about 22-26% (www.amadershomoy.com); due to a lack of contesting candidates in some constituencies there was no vote at all!); election ends with chaos; local media, international communities and donor agencies expressed their dissatisfaction about the credibility of the election outcomes and the way election was conducted; and others. However, the ruling Awami League called the election a free and fair one and expressed its satisfaction about the election outcomes. This paper deals with the following research questions: (a) What is the political culture in Bangladesh and how does political culture influence election in the country? (b) Why Bangladeshi regimes feel encouraged to allow ‘electoral engineering’ or fail to meet international standards while conducting elections? (c) What are the consequences when elections fail to meet the necessary level of credibility and how to overcome these problems? The paper is based on empirical data collected mainly from personal observation of the 10th national election in Bangladesh as well as information from the Election Commission’s website and print and electronic media reports about the 10th General Election and democracy in Bangladesh. Data from published secondary sources have also been consulted. This paper argues that Bangladesh democracy is again at the crossroads as the provision of Non-party Caretaker Government (NCG) has been scrapped by the current regime from the Constitution despite resistance from the main opposition block. In fact, the 10th general parliamentary election under party government raised critical questions about the credibility of election, legitimacy of the regime, and stability of the government. The paper further argues that democracy has been provided with little room for expected development by uncouth party politics or political culture in Bangladesh. Although an interim arrangement, called the Caretaker Government system, was introduced for transition from dictatorship into democracy in 1991 and was relatively successful in holding three free and fair elections; it suffered setback in conducting the 4th General Election owing to composition imbroglio and was replaced by a military-backed Caretaker Government. Therefore, this paper draws the conclusion that though electoral system in Bangladesh has been changed from the Caretaker Government system to election under party government system, little qualitative change has taken place in the country’s political system and electoral arena and culture to have credible election, followed by democratic legitimacy and regime stability

The Pakistan Agricultural Research System: Present Status and Future Agenda

Alarming food supply and demand deficits are projected to the year 2020 and beyond for Pakistan, based on its current low investment/low growth agricultural sector. Evidence suggests that agricultural productivity growth and increases in production may not keep pace with past growth rates. Part of the problem is an underfunded and poorly managed agricultural research system that can not hope to contribute significantly to increasing agricultural productivity now or in the future. The World Bank-assisted Agricultural Research II Project (ARP-II) was initiated to partially overcome some of the funding problems and provide institutional development in the areas of organisation, planning, and management of the research system at both the federal and provincial levels. A National Master Agricultural Research Plan (NMARP) was one of the principal goals of the ARP-II as part of improving research planning and management. The objective of this paper is to review the reasons why the Pakistan agricultural research system needs to be revitalised, review the status and problems of the present agricultural research system, and outline a future agenda for Pakistan’s agricultural research system based on the plan developed for the NMARP

Bulky household waste management in a UK local authority area: current practice, challenges and improvement opportunities

Charnwood Borough Council (CBC), an English local authority, recently introduced a Zero Waste Strategy encompassing targets for waste minimisation and recycling of household waste above UK Government baselines. To achieve these targets various areas of household waste management need to be amended to improve recycling performance. The bulky waste collection service, collecting large items such as furniture and electrical goods was identified as an area to target for improvement. A case study approach was adopted using data collected on a daily basis by CBC to quantify the number and type of items in the bulky waste stream. Current practices of managing bulky household waste are explored; identifying challenges in dealing with this waste stream such as financial and logistical challenges in identifying, collecting, repairing and storage. However, there is potential to increase recycling of some discarded items, particularly the large numbers of mattresses and some wooden furniture unsuitable for reuse

The Selangor State Assembly oversight and government accountability

Government choices, decisions and actions impacts the lives of a country’s citizens. It is imperative to ensure that every decision made by the legislative body has the best interest of the citizens at heart. The constitution of Malaysia provides that, apart from the parliament, at the state level, the State Assembly is entrusted to accomplish that duty. The Selangor State Assembly (SSA) is the legislative body that oversees the government of Selangor. The SSA follows the parliamentary model of government. This paper attempts to examine the effectiveness of the SSA oversight in ensuring the Selangor state government accountability in relation to the Talam case. The concept of accountability has two facets – answerability and enforcement. This study is an explorative attempt to describe the effectiveness of the SSA oversight used in ensuring government accountability. Matching internal and external oversights with the different forms of accountability must have high enforcement or sanctions capacity for the oversight mechanisms to be effective. This paper will examine the following research questions: a) What are the mechanisms available to ensure the accountability of the SSA; b) Are the mechanisms in place ensuring the government accountability in Selangor; and c) What are the challenges in ensuring government accountability in Selangor and how they are to be resolved. The data of this research paper would mainly be from secondary sources. The work of Pelizzo and Stapenhurst (2014) in legislative oversight and government accountability will be used as the theoretical guideline of this study. Their conceptual model highlighted that legislature under some conditions (context) can perform efficiently and effectively their oversight function (which also depends on the tools at their disposal). Legislative oversight, if effectively performed, can keep government accountable; a greater accountability can lead to a reduction in the level of corruption. Reduced corruption results in improved economic development and living standards. This study reveals the extent of the SSA legislative oversight effectiveness in ensuring the Selangor state government accountability

Household waste management practices in Charnwood borough, England

Household waste recycling rates vary between 20-60% across the UK. Legislative and financial measures introduced to reduce landfill disposal of waste in the UK, have impacted on the way Local Authorities operate their household waste and recycling collection services. This paper reports on the performance of Charnwood Borough Council (CBC), a Local Authority in England, it is responsible for the collection and recycling of waste from 67,000 households. This service is carried out by a private company, Serco, who operate household waste collections for 15 UK Local Authorities. To improve recycling performance CBC has changed the collection frequency and increased the number of materials segregated from residual waste for recovery. There have also been actions and campaigns to raise public awareness. Together these have improved recycling and composting rates in the CBC area from 16% in 2002/03 to 46.1% in 2010/11. This paper is a case study and progress report on the details of how this was achieved. It compares performance with other Local Authorities, explores the impact of local operational and policy issues on the amount of household waste collected for recycling. The research has concluded that differences in how the household waste services were provided and local policies influenced the amount of recyclates recovered. Local decision making and the ability to tailor services to suit different demographic areas, together with partnerships between neighbouring Authorities supported better sustainable waste management