Democratisation of political parties is essential for democracy to succeed
Editorial Desk :
A political party in order to be a genuine one must comprise those who are politicians. A politician has to prepare himself for running the government selflessly for the benefit of the people. The political parties should be the breeding ground of political leaders and not a family business concern.
Those who want to be politicians must know what the politics is all about and, most importantly, when they come to power they must take seriously their dedication to serve the people selflessly. In other words, the politicians cannot ignore their accountability to the people and unequivocally accept the change of government through people’s vote in a free election.
In Bangladesh, there is an ongoing open conspiracy against change of government by the people through a free election. Staying in power through rigged election is no shame.
The reason why our democracy is faltering badly is we do not have political parties of politicians. It is harsh but needs to be said: If our goal is to achieve democracy then we must have political parties of politicians.
The politicians are a class by themselves belonging to a noble vocation. In a functional democracy, it is unthinkable that anybody without the knowledge of politics of government shall be assigned to run the government democratically.
To the non-politician led government, the Constitution has no importance as the supreme law of the country. The need of independent judiciary or the free press is not understood by a no-politician in power. Blaming the non-politicians in power will not change anything.
The damage is done by the undemocratic political parties and the kind of government we can honestly expect is bureaucratic dictatorship in which personal gain is everything. As is known to us, absolute power will corrupt the government absolutely. That is why we find corruption everywhere in the government and there is no end to the miseries of the people. The election riggers are more important to such a government.
A non-politician government is a clear threat to democracy. It is the responsibility of a democratic political party to be a party of politicians and choose the best equipped politician as their leader to lead the government.
The knowledge of running a democratic government democratically cannot be a matter of inheritance. A democratically run government has to depend on democratic institutions as spelled out in the democratic Constitution.
As a non-politician, unused to democratic system of government, he or she finds it convenient to rely on the bureaucrats to run government the bureaucratic way. The democratic Constitution has no use to the bureaucrats. In the absence democratic political parties, democracy is doomed to fail. We have political parties as inheritable business concerns.
In effect, the political parties are in the grip of businessmen and ambitious bureaucrats. Such political parties exist as money-making businesses.
The people’s demand for free election is to protect their right to vote. The demand for the change of government is to have the people’s government replacing the government of rigged election.
