POLITICAL CRISIS OF BANGLADESH :
Part Six : SPECIFIC PROPOSALS (iii) FINANCE OF THE PARTIES.
Prof. Bijon B. Sarma
INTRODUCTION :
We have mentioned how im****tant the issue of financing the political
party is. Because of a defective system of this finance, the
government of a highly developed and rich country like USA is after
creation of wars and war-like situations throughout the world. Unless
we can formulate an appropriate system of this finance, there will be
no hope of betterment of our political environment. The readers might
have noticed, the specific proposals mentioned above have been
designed to keep the expenditure of the party to minimum level. These
days men can exchange ideas through phones and letters without
involving costly trans****t. Scope of this privilege has also been
utilized, where there are arrangements for the Thana, District of
Divisional members to caste votes by post. In spite all such
endeavors, a party still needs some amount of money. The honest way to
collect this money is from its sup****ters. Those unwilling to
contribute to the parties should be informed that :
(i) By allowing the political parties to collect money from foreign
countries or companies, the citizens in fact entice the government to
take anti-people and anti-state measures.
(ii) By allowing the political parties to collect money from large
companies the citizens in fact cause the increase of the cost of their
product or services.
In such a situation it is better for the citizens to pay little and
thus to prevent the ruling or other parties from adopting unfair
means. When the people directly pay them contributions, they in fact
ethically bound them to pay attention to their words and attain the
right to say, "why do you waste money ?" This process would lead the
political parties to feel obliged to the common people. This is the
reverse situation of the "forceful chandabazi (booty collection)"
adopted by some political parties.
WHICH PARTY CAN GET FINANCE : It is not possible for the people to
finance all the parties because there is every possibilities that
their number will be many. So, the maximum number should be kept
within four. After the first countrywide election, the four parties
wining maximum votes but not less than 1% may be given this status.
However, the following procedure may be followed in determining these
at the initial stage. .
PROCEDURE FOR DETERMINING THE TOP FOUR : The registered political
parties may be given points in the following manner : For registered
National Committee - 100 points, Divisional Committee - 50 points
each, District Committee - 25 points each and Thana Committee - 10
points each. All parties would be given a certain time (say three
months) to register their committees. Then their points counted in
the above scale shall be added and the four parties achieving highest
points will be identified. In case of tie decision may be taken
through open lottery. The registered parties will be have permission
to collect money from their enlisted members and office-bearers
strictly at the rate mentioned in their application. In addition to
those only the top four parties will be given the permission to
collect money from their sup****ters and the common people.
HOW TO COLLECT MONEY : The money from the office-bearers, enlisted
members and sup****ters will have to be collected through receipts,
where the names of the payee will be recorded. Non-named coupon will
be used for collecting contributions from the public. All the parties
would re required to open accounts and to make the transactions
through the bank. These accounts will be audited every year.
MEMBERS AND SUP****TERS : The political parties would have the
following types of members :
(01) Enlisted members : Those who have due endorsement by the
government to participate in politics, taken oath to abide by the
principles of the party, filled up requisite forms, paid member****p
fee and pay monthly contributions regularly will be considered as
enlisted members. Only such members will be allowed to compete for
being office-bearers and only the office-bearers, to compete in the
national election.
(02) Sup****ters or patron : They are the persons who are not allowed
by the government to participate in active politics. Such sup****ters
can express their sup****t only by paying monthly contributions at the
rate mentioned in the application. These sup****ters should pay to only
one party. However, they are free to stop payment or start paying to
another party.
Other than the enlisted members and sup****ters, the top four parties
can raise contributions from the general public irrespective of their
party affiliations using coupon at the rate mentioned in their
application on one day in each year.
PATRONIZATION BY THE GOVERNMENT :
The government should patronize the top four political parties and
their office bearers in the following ways :
(01) The responsibility of the celebration of national days (like :
Independence day, Victory day, Bengali New Year etc.) should be given
on the top four political parties in a cyclic order. A committee with
members of this party and government officials may finalize the
program and the money allocated by the government and that contributed
by the party may be used for this purpose. After they see several such
celebrations, the citizens may get idea about the efficiency and
honesty of the various parties.
(02) The office bearers of the top-four parties may be issued identity
card by the election commission authorities. Such identity card may
enable the holder preference for getting trans****t ticket, appointment
with the government official etc.
(03) The authorities at Thana, District, Division and National levels
may allocate hall rooms (Public hall, auditorium etc.) open space for
holding meeting etc. to the top four at reduced rate. The spaces may
be allocated in cyclic order, like, First weekend of the month - A
parity, Second weekend - B party and so on.
(04) The authorities at Thana, District, Division and National levels
may arrange small equal-sized office rooms for the four parties.
All these measures would help to reduce the expenses of the political
parties.
CONCLUSION :
The caretaker government is striving for improving the political
environment of the country. They strongly feel, only the entry of good
persons in politics can ensure such a situation. The intelligent
people know that our present system does, in no way encourage the good
people (who do not see politics as a means of money-earning act) to
enter in politics. In such a situation, this author has prepared the
above mentioned proposal, with the conviction that it would help in
creating comfortable situation for good men's entry and dominance in
the arena of politics. In preparing these proposals attention has been
paid to the following :
(01) The common people should become conscious about politics, which
is the plays supreme role in determining the status of their lives and
the country.
(02) Political activities may be done at less cost.
(03) Political activities may be continued throughout the year and
not only on the year of election.
(04) A fair competition is created among the political parties to
please the common people by charging less, spending less and showing
more activities.
(05) The political parties may remain accountable to the common
people to an extent where they can say, "not you, but we are the
masters because your party runs by our money".
In the above proposal there are provisions such that Politics may
start from below, in place of from the top. It may be seen that the
cost of registering a committee at thana level is about Taka 2000.00
(Application form -Tk 100.00, Registration Fee -Tk. 1000.00 and other
ancillary cost, say Tk.900.00). In such a situation, it is expected
that a few like-minded people of the thana would registrar a
committee. They can do it without the name of the party. Then parties
formed at higher levels may come to annex such committees in their own
interest.
If the good people find that the cost of politics is within their
reach, the fellow members in the parliament are not below standard,
there is no mechanism in which he may be asked to give enormous money
to feed the party, then they may be interested to enter in it.
On the other hand, if the money hungry businessmen discover that there
is little or no monetary gain in this profession, it involves risk
because of declaration of wealth, his inadequacy of knowledge may be
exposed in the environment created by intelligent and educated men
etc. then he may feel discouraged to this profession.
Would our election commission and concerned authorities spend little
time to go through the proposals and find, how far this author's
expectations are valid ?
PROF. BIJON B. SARMA, ARCHITECTURE DISCIPLINE, KHULNA UNIVERSITY
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