The recent fire at certain sections of the Bangladesh Secretariat building in the capital, which burnt important documents and badly damaged parts of the building, has troubled the nation and raised questions about the efficacy and credibility of the interim government (IG).
The fire is prompting people to question the capacity and credibility of the IG in ensuring the bare minimum and the safety and security of vital government assets, let alone the country.
These critics also claim that the IG which has been in power for the last four months has little to show in terms of accomplishments. These are serious allegations that warrant objective analysis with suggestions for way forward.
And quite rightly, we ought to fault the IG and Prof Yunus on many things, for example, they have so far failed to make tangible progress in restoring law and order, in depoliticization of the bureaucracy, controlling corruption, and much more. But then we need to examine these failures within the political and institutional contexts in which Prof Yunus took charge, the IG has been formed and currently operating.
We also need to recognize some of their successes and this is important because a balanced understanding of the IG’s failures and successes would help us to chart out a better way forward.
From the start of the uprising and even till August 5, no one had any clue of what would happen next. But the leadership of the movement knew -- they are the ones who thought of the idea of an IG with Prof Yunus as the leader.
Thus, Yunus is an accidental, but appointed leader of the post-movement Bangladesh. Prof Yunus had no hesitation in rising to the occasion and thus, accepted the invitation of the students to lead the IG, knowing fully well that the tasks ahead would be anything, but a bed of roses.
For Bangladesh, this was fortuitous. Prof Yunus’ irrefutable good standing, within and abroad, helped in guaranteeing a semblance of trust and order in the country and more importantly, his stellar international reputation as a humanist gave the IG the credibility, globally.
Presence of Yunus at the helm, also worked as a bulwark against external threats that threatened to unsettle and destabilise post-Hasina Bangladesh.
Internally, Yunus acted as the political glue that helped keep the country together at its most critical juncture.
While it is true that the IG and Yunus have not done as well as people expected them to, it may equally be important to recognize some of their accomplishments in just four months, which have long-term ramifications.
Accomplishments
Most accomplishments of the IG are not visible to the public eye, but these accomplishments have been crucial in steadying a collapsing economy and in stabilizing the state in the most challenging conditions and counting.
The accomplishments of the IG include but not limited to:
(i) Bringing back some semblance of stability and order in the society;
(ii) Steadying the economy by improving the balance of payment conditions and through preventing run-away inflation
(iii) successfully researching and publishing a White Paper on corruption -- an empirical documentation of the extent and depth of corruption of the Hasina government which also revealed the areas where mega-corruption took place and in the process, highlighted policies and measures relevant for corruption prevention in future.
These are pathbreaking accomplishments and the IG deserve much credit for these. Work on other reforms are progressing in all earnest.
The fire is prompting people to question the capacity and credibility of the IG in ensuring the bare minimum
Impediments
In post-Hasina Bangladesh, the impediments to the implementation of good governance norms and reforms are many and among these the most challenging are the corrupt and politicized institutions, the legacies of which the IG has inherited and must work with to implement change.
This is anything but easy. The operating arrangements that are highly opaque, hierarchical, and patronage based, and the officials who are carry-overs of the deposed regime and are blind loyalists, have vested interests in maintaining the status quo of abuse. Their blind loyalty to the deposed political party and its deified leader, dissuades them from embracing and implementing change.
In other words, the institutional incongruities and the threats of sabotage and inaction within have made the IG’s tasks to implement change incredibly difficult. The relentless cacophony of the long-dormant, now impatient Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to get a grab at the cake is not exactly helping IG’s reform mission either.
The challenges are intractable and difficult to overcome overnight. At the same time, IG’s go-easy adaptive approach to work through the existing institutions that are unfriendly and incompatible with the mission of reform and with the intransigent public officials have done the obvious -- either stalled or subverted progress. So, what is the way out?
The way out, an opportunity?
As a dark alley often leads to a bright opening, the Secretariat fire incident which no doubt is a huge blemish on the efficacy of the IG, is an incident that also revealed that the enemy is within and not outside.
While this is deeply worrying, the incident may also have offered the IG an opportunity to move away from its not-so-successful adaptive approach to drastically different approaches in conducting the businesses of the state such that they are able to implement policies fast and with less fissures.
The arson has given the IG the much-needed moral and legal space to declare a state of emergency, use the Emergency Law to weed out the non-performing, non-willing officials within (civil and security), push through policies that are relevant and needed urgently, take measures that are key to building citizen trust in the process, and lay foundations for the democratic transition.
This may also be a good time to review the performance of the current advisors and if need be, reconstitute/expand the IG with people who are more efficient, forthright with integrity.
M Adil Khan is a Professor (Adjunct) of Development Practice, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Australia and former senior policy manager of the United Nations.