Over the past few months, there has been clash over personalities and their neutrality and competence. Both parties claim that they want free and fair election and both parties claim that they want to uphold the constitution. In my proposal, I am assuming that is the case. Based on that I am proposing the following framework to have a free and fair election in Bangladesh. If both parties are sincere, there is a bit for both parties and no party gets everything they want. But I believe this is our best chance to have a free and fair election with competent people as supervisors. I have put this forth to Take Back Bangladesh to see if they can hash it out more and propose it in their platform tomorrow. It will be great to get your input as well.
1. We need more time to hold a credible election. In that regard, as per article 123(4) in the constitution if the CEC deems it it is impossible to hold an election for an act of God, another 90 day extension is possible. I propose that we take guidance from Supreme Court to request for this extra 90 days because of national emergency.
2. If we get the extra 90 days, we will have 5 months to hold free and fair election. If we don’t get the extra 3 months, we have to do the following in two months.
3. The election will be done by a new election commission and a new caretaker government. All the current caretaker advisers and the chief adviser will resign.
4. 10 new caretaker advisers will be picked from a pool of 30 advisers who conducted the past 3 election as part of the last 3 caretaker governments. This will be in agreement with both parties.
5. Chief Caretaker adviser post will go to the next available chief justice or a civilian who is acceptible to both parties as per constitution. In this case, should the chief justices are not acceptible to both parties. So the post should be offered to Dr. Yunus or one person from the adviser pool of 30 from past caretaker governments with proven track record on efficiency and neutrality.
6. For constitutional obligations, the President stays as the figure head president with the responsibility of the defence ministry.
7. All elecition Commissioners will have to resign and a new election commission with 3 commissioners are created. The post of chief election commissioner is offered to Mr. Sayeed who was the immediate past cec and has very good reputation for competence. The post of other 2 commissioners be filled by past two CEC from 96 and 91 election who have conducted the election successfully. Both parties won under these commissioners, so there should be no controversy about their partisanship and there will be a balance. Also these people with proven competence are what we need to conduct an election which will be one of the toughest to hold.
8. Voter List will be updated for the upcoming election to make it “near perfect”.
9. As soon as the voter list draft is completed, election will be held in the shortest possible time.
In making this proposal, I have tried to find who are the most non-controversial people with proven competence (relatively speaking). Also since the fights are mostly on personalities, giving a limited pool to chose from will make the disagreements easy to resolve. AL gets new election commission, voter list and BNP gets to keep the president and a fresh new advisory council.
Any takers? Let’s build on this with your suggestion and propose it as the average citizen’s proposal tomorrow at the Take Back Bangladesh concert with as much media coverage as possible so that it becomes embarrassing for both the parties to reject it. I know. I am sounding unrealistic. But lets dare to dream like Dr. Y.
This press release was received this weekend:
