The federal government shutdown in the US is making headline news worldwide, and it carries valuable lessons for Bangladesh. For the legislative power to get to an impasse is part and parcel of a healthy democratic life. It tests the system at its limits, exposes shortcomings and forces compromise. In our case here in Bangladesh however, we carry such a showdown to new levels.
Rival political parties currently dominate the two chambers of the American Congress. The Republicans hold a majority in the lower assembly: the House of Representatives. And within the Republican caucus, the Tea Party is dominant.
The Tea Party is a loose association of grassroots political action groups that subscribe to an aggressively conservative vision of government. For Tea Partiers, not only should government be small, but often treated as an evil intruder on the proper functioning of society and the free market.
The Tea Party movement has succeeded in electing a lot of typically young Republican Members of Congress who are both relatively inexperienced in government and responsive to the vision of the Tea Party. They are the ones who were instrumental in the proposed budget passed by the House and that includes reversing Obamacare.
Obamacare is the signature legislation aiming at health reform, albeit coming short of offering universal health coverage, and that constitutes a major “achievement” of President Obama’s first term. By linking a balanced budget to a reversal of Obamacare, the Republican House has effectively declared war on the president.
The senate, while dominated by Democrats, unanimously voted to reject the House proposed budget. Republican senators it seems are more realistic and less ideological than their counterparts in the House.
The impasse of a no-budget situation in the United States has led to a shutdown of government and to a showdown between the president and the House Republican leadership. Signs of a potential compromise are already luring in the horizon: There is a national interest of not letting the nation default on its debts, ruining its economy and discrediting the political class.
It is true that the approval ratings of US politicians are rather dismal. However Americans tend to appreciate the performance of their own elected representatives even when they disparage the entire political class. In its current political crisis, the United States gives us an example of tensions that take the system to the verge of collapse.
However, built into these tensions are the interests of the elected as well as the electorate to reach a compromise. We can safely predict that however long this current standoff takes, it will end in a compromise. So all this news about a stalemate fulfills our need for drama.
Bangladesh has a unicameral parliament. This normally makes the system less prone to the type of standoff that is paralysing the US. However, in our case, the norm has been a winner-take-all approach to parliamentary life. The party in the majority legislates, the party in the minority boycotts.
The odd situation of a seemingly productive parliamentary life with laws being enacted, while no national consensus and no real debate about the content and tenure of the laws is what we have here in Bangladesh.
We are thus subject to severe swinging from one parliament to the next, of reversing laws and even scrapping constitutional amendments. Bangladesh has a healthy, vibrant and democratically inclined electorate.
However, the main lesson of compromise and avoiding a tyranny of the majority which symbolise a mature democracy, and that the United States will have to work through to overcome its current crisis, seems to be lost on our system. The Bangladeshi system has been one that favours an absolutist majoritarian legislature.
The net result is that while the US is currently suffering a short drama, our political system exposes us to the permanent tragedy of a large segment of our population (the opposition) feeling alienated by our political process.
Bangladesh is ready for a different kind of politics, one in which the majority rules while accounting for the voice and the wishes of the minority.
If our politicians are not able to practice this formula, our civic forces should demand that it be codified in a constitutional text. While the US can afford a few weeks of shutdown, Bangladesh cannot afford a permanent shutoff.
