On August 10, 1948, a small group of 33 politicians, civil servants, and scientists met on a secluded island in Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria, Germany. They had the task of drafting a new constitution for Germany. After 12 years of Nazi reign of terror, a democratic state had to be recreated from scratch.
The convention was able to agree on a text in just two weeks. This text became the basis for the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, which met in Bonn on September 1, 1948. The assembly had 65 voting members. Four women were among them -- the mothers of the Basic Law. The representatives had previously been elected in the state parliaments of the western occupation zones.
The members of the assembly were influenced by the experiences of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Terror. They all felt committed to the common idea of creating a free, democratic basic order in which freedom, equality, and tolerance are guaranteed in the long term.
On May 8, 1949, exactly four years after the surrender of Nazi Germany, the text was passed by the Parliamentary Council and on May 24, 1949 the new Basic Law came into force. It has been the basis of German democracy for over 75 years now and with only a few changes. In 146 articles, the Basic Law regulates the rights of citizens, the structure of the state and its organs, and the distribution of competencies between the federal government and the states.
An article that has particular importance for democracy in Germany is Article 21. It regulates the structure of political parties:
(1) Political parties shall participate in the formation of the political will of the people. They may be freely established. Their internal organization must conform to democratic principles. They must publicly account for their assets and for the sources and use of their funds.
(2) Parties that, by reason of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional.
On the basis of this article, a party law regulates the structure of political parties in Germany. Three points seem important to me:
- Parties must be democratically constituted. For example, it is not permissible for a party leader to select the candidates who can run for parliament in a specific constituency. Rather, these candidates must be chosen by the party members in their constituency or by a meeting of delegates of the constituency. The parties are structured in such a way that the lower level elects the higher level. These elections are secret. This limits the power of party leaders. The party leadership must also stand for election to a delegate meeting every two years. The delegates, in turn, are elected by the party base in secret elections. The lower level determines the next higher level.
- The parties receive partial funding from the state. The amount is based on the last election results. This is to ensure that the parties are not for sale. You can accept donations, but you have to publish them above a certain amount. Anonymous donations and donations from abroad are prohibited. State party financing is intended to ensure that parties are not dependent on illegal financing, such as extorting money from business people, etc.
- Parties that strive for unconstitutional goals such as the abolition of democracy cannot be admitted. If existing parties pursue such goals, they can be banned by the Constitutional Court.
The context in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, political parties are regulated by the Political Parties Ordinance of 1978. This relatively short text is essentially directed against foreign influence and prohibits armed or secret affiliates of political parties. These regulations are understandable from the perspective of 1978, but need to be supplemented from today's perspective.
The experiences of the last decades should play an important role in this. Parties must not become instruments of power for individuals or families. Their internal structure must be democratic. The “Registration of Political Parties Act-2020” provides a mechanism for the Election Commission to only register parties if they hold elections for members at all levels up to the central committee.
But candidates for parliament are not included here. It also remains unclear how to deal with parties that are already registered but have obviously become instruments of power for a small leadership group. In practice, the law did little to promote democratization.
In fact, Sheikh Hasina's unlimited power in the Awami League meant that only those people who fully supported the criminal and kleptocratic policies of the AL could become candidates for parliament or rise in the party hierarchy.
Over the last 15 years, the AL systematically dismantled all checks and balances and undermined all state institutions with the main aim of plundering the country's wealth. Rule of law was replaced by arbitrariness. Section 57 of the ICT Act de facto abolished freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Anyone who criticized the AL kleptocracy had to expect murder and kidnapping. The kleptocrats themselves had nothing to fear. Reconstructing a functioning democratic state will take years.
The Hasina-led kleptocracy was no accident. The BNP-led government of 2001-2006 practised a similar behaviour. In 2005, for the fifth consecutive year, the non-governmental organization Transparency International named Bangladesh the world's most corrupt country. The first government under Mujib’s leadership already showed forms of kleptocratic behaviour. It is obvious that a democratic Bangladesh needs legal structures and regulations to protect the state from the thieves.
Those legal protections should also include a party law that regulates intra-party democracy, as well as the financing of parties and financial accountability and the possibility of banning parties that pursue anti-democratic goals.
Dr Thomas Heinrich Prinz was the Ambassador of Germany to Bangladesh from 2015-2019. He came to Bangladesh in 1983 as a university student as an intern at GIZ. He holds a PhD from South Asia Institute Heidelberg on political parties in South Asia and is married to a Bangladeshi.
