“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”
-- Anton Chekov
A fundamental principle of governance is establishing and maintaining the trust of the people in the institutions a country has and the people who run them. Absent of that trust, the institutions become meaningless and lose all credibility. People have faith in institutions like the parliament, the judiciary, law enforcement, and bureaucracy so long as they perceive them to be honest in their conduct, impartial in governance, and are strict in adherence to rule of law. These are hallmarks of a good government, good leaders, and a good nation.
Unfortunately, not all countries can claim to be role models of excellence in governance, but most aim to achieve a minimal standard of good governance. This is why, in countries that practice democracy, political parties compete to gain control of the government with promises of good governance. Often, they fail when they gain power to deliver on their promises, and people throw them out in the next round. And the cycle begins anew. That is how democracy works.
In countries that follow the dictum of people sovereignty, rule of law, and good governance, there are also rules -- both written and unwritten -- that put boundaries which a government should abide by. These are codes of conduct for its employees, its law enforcement, judiciary, and other institutions that are run on public trust, such as the election commission, public service commission, etc. It is implicit that the people who work in these institutions would be neutral since their service is for people at large, not any particular section or segment of society.
That is why selection for appointments in a government institution or bureaucracy is usually on the basis of merit and competition. People who work in these institutions are not selected on party affiliation or loyalty to the party in power. There is a strict boundary between politics and government employees and institutions, at least in most countries which are not run by a single party-based government.
It is a different story altogether for a country that is under a dictator or a communist government.
In Bangladesh, currently, we are witnessing a slow but sure descent into a deficit of trust between people and the agencies entrusted with running the essential functions of government. These range from civil administration and law enforcement to judiciary to election commission. It is not so much because of their perceived ineffectiveness or reputation of corruption but as much, or perhaps more, it is because of their perceived politicization that this trust gap has increased.
This erosion of credibility in government agencies and officials is accelerated when people hear a chief of police who attends a meeting of ruling party cadre and expresses his loyalty to the head of the party. The trust and faith in impartiality of a government is at stake when a head of a district administration joins a prayer in his office invoking the success of a candidate from the ruling party for a public office. Such behaviour does not enhance public trust in government agencies and the people who run these.
This corrosion of trust did not happen overnight. This corrosion started many years ago, in fact. The insidious invasion of politics into government institutions began when successive political governments adopted patronization of employees deemed loyal and punishing others who were deemed beholden to the previous government. This pattern became evident in the selection of several heads of the caretaker government, who were entrusted with conducting four elections from 1991-2008.
The selection of the chief advisor of the caretaker government became a lightning rod because of the nominee’s perceived tilt toward one party or another. But more importantly, this divisive issue was also a factor in partisan behavior of the bureaucracy that shaped the government for later years.
As we rolled into a more stable government in successive years, partly due to failure of the opposition parties to consolidate and its absence from elections on ground of suspected fraudulence in franchise, the invasion of politics into government agencies became even stronger. So much so that, today, it would be not wrong to say that public credibility of an impartial law enforcement agency or civil administration is rare.
The government is making all preparations for a credible election in less than two years’ time hoping that all parties would participate. But there are stumbling blocks to this hope being realized -- main among these are the major opposition party BNP’s demand for a caretaker government, and a newly constituted election commission with non-partisan members. Absent of these, BNP has declared it will not participate in the elections, like it has done in two previous general elections giving the ruling party an easy ride.
A general election without participation from the major opposition will not give it the credibility the government seeks for these elections, and yielding to the demands of BNP for a caretaker government is a non-starter for the government as well, given that the caretaker government provision has been scrapped through a constitutional amendment.
Is there still room for a compromise? Perhaps none, unless the government party is willing to risk meeting the demands half-way by agreeing to form an interim government to hold the elections, and reform the election commission with former judges, and giving it full powers to conduct the elections without meddling from government. But, most importantly, the government must act to stop further invasion of politics into government agencies and officials.
I do not know if this is what the government wants, but I know what will happen next. The next political government, whenever it comes, will begin another cycle of reward and punishment, completing the trust deficit once and for all.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
