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AL, BNP Election Manifestos

Old wine in a new bottle

Published : Friday, 21 December, 2018 at 12:00 AM  Count : 707
Shahriar Feroze
Much suspense thrived in the country's domestic political developments throughout the first 19 days of December. Mudslinging coupled with verbal abuse between the two key political rivals is still continuing, hundreds of nominations have been cancelled in an unprecedented manner, many of the opposition candidates carry on to be harassed , major cities have become covered with campaigning posters, and loud speakers never before appeared so horribly loud begging for votes while promoting scrupulous and unscrupulous candidates . And in the midst of all this--the country's two major political parties have disclosed their respective election manifestos. Now all attention surrounds December 30th--Election Day.

While circumspectly reading through the pledges chalked out in AL and BNP's manifesto last night, it seemed the former remains to stick to its past economy and development based ambitions while the latter is somewhat one-dimensional devoid of aspiration, perhaps too less-aspirant in some respect. Now let's look into their election promises.

The party in power has pledged to drive the country's economy towards 10 per cent growth within the next five years, if voted to power. More to it, the party's president and also our PM has promised to turn Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021, and a developed country by 2041. The questions, however, is that manageable? How important are they in line with public demand? And most importantly, what's new in the AL manifesto?

Moving towards an incomplete goal, based on a set of strategies is conclusively good. Adding a bit of ambition to pick up the challenge in order to get the job done is all fine. But the point here--a political manifesto doesn't have to be reserved for life--changing events.

Political manifesto is a public declaration, a party's intent to aim victory at elections, not promise unthinkable dreams. It would be wrong to suggest the country not to have progressed during the back-to-back AL regimes stretching to nearly a decade.

The message, however, there isn't a countrywide uprising demanding transformation of Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021. The GDP growth is stable, and also much of the groundwork for upgrading Bangladesh to a middle income country is continuing. It's the flow of the progress that needs to be maintained with no hurry. This writer expects to see not the middle income branding, but the larger population living the actual standards of a middle income country in reality. However, to cut short, AL's manifesto for the 11th JS polls, in fact, is a continuation of the ruling party's long-term plans outlined in the 2008 and 2014 manifestos. Needs be mentioned, promises of 'progress and prosperity' have become too conventional these days.

Remember, US economy under Donald Trump's America is not doing too badly, but the country's global image has been vastly tarnished due to his detestable, racial, ignorant, and destructive speeches and actions. Would you forget and forget him overnight just because he guarantees unimpeded economic growth of his country? The notion to justify failures in other sectors cannot solely be just economic progress.

However, after its 2008 landslide win, the AL did not deliver on some of its important pledges. Just to name a single most important one--Its pledge to take steps to inculcate tolerance and decency in politics still remains on paper to this day.

While browsing through the BNP manifesto, it felt like even worse. Three basic elements of a proper manifesto are--it has to be provocative, grounded and also sincerely desired. If you carefully observe - the country's largest opposition force actually attempted to capitalise on every single arenas - where the ruling party either failed or proved to be evidently weak.

BNP's election manifesto promises to bring sweeping reforms to strengthen democracy, make parliament effective, establish the rule of law and ensure independence of the judiciary--colossal tasks given little reliability of the party's past track records when it was in power. Additionally, BNP pledged to protect freedom of speech and expression by scrapping what it says are black laws including Digital Security Act, Special Powers Act and Official Secrets Act. Rather curiously, the party also pledged to promote and brand freedom fighters as 'honorary citizens'.

If this writer is not incorrect, the valiant freedom fighters of this country are honourable citizens in the eyes of any sane, logical and patriotic countrymen. My opinion in this regard, the manifesto promise won't sell or most of the freedom fighters won't buy it. Current state of most freedom fighters is better, if not worse than what it was during previous BNP regimes.

The question here, how many of the actual freedom fighters are alive today? The ones who are alive understandably falls under the sixty plus year category and at the fag end of their lives, most are not interested on honorific titles and financially tempting packages. Also the party's pledge for disclosure of wealth statements of prime minister, ministers, and MPs is not new. And choosing to put special focus on the ICT sector proves the party hadn't execute enough numbers of brain storming sessions for identifying its economic goals. A type of tunnel vision seemed to have prevailed on the economic objectives. Its challenge for an 11 percent growth against AL's 10 percent is a clear attempt to counter political rivalry, not a realistic manifesto pledge for the country's economy.

In general, the chief opposition party's manifesto lacks the overall appeal to match with public expectation.
Experts and high-ups of both parties must have played crucial roles in drafting their party's individual manifesto, but I was sad to note none to have promised to resolve the worsening Rohingya crisis. Isn't it a massive challenge in today's Bangladesh? Shouldn't one of the two parties identify the corruption riddled banking sector, and promise to put an end to the seemingly unstoppable financial scams? Did any of the parties promised not to exploit the country's law enforcement agencies to ruthlessly crush political dissent?

Is there a single promise in the two manifestos to stop extra-judicial killings and arrange speedy trial of criminal law enforcement members? To say the least, did any of the two parties promised to step down from power prior the 12 th JS polls? All answers are a straight "No".

An election manifesto is not a mere list of official promises meant for waging a war against your political opponent , capitalising on your rival's weaknesses and failures, it's about providing a party's honest intents for providing a future guideline of the country. Sit on the fence, compare and judge the two manifestos, you would largely come across unadventurous and conformist promises of the past for merely enriching vote banks--echoing dreams of a better future. That said--whoever is elected to power, I would expect the party to prioritise their pledges in respective manifestos and work hard to materialise them.

No political party in the world can live up to one hundred percent successful materialisation of its manifesto. But the party must prove that it tried its level best to do so.

We have heard, read and believed in elections manifestos before. We come across new ones now, but do our political parties sincerely mean what they officially declare as a political manifesto? Or are their manifestos the same old wine served in new bottles. You just have to get a little intoxicated for seeking the truth.

The writer is editor in charge of the editorial section, The Daily Observer


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