It's not abnormal !

By Dr. Mohammed Giashuddin, New York, USA
8 July 2004, 18:00 PM
It seems completely ridiculous to expect fair election and talk about corruption and fake voting under an elected government. It's rather unconstitutional because "elected governments can't conduct any fair election" is the basic premise of the much acclaimed "care-taker government" provision of our constitution.

How can we demand and add the provision for a care-taker government to the constitution and expect fair and neutral bye-election under an elected government? If someone ponders deeply he should understand that the provision is a very big barrier in nurturing democratic spirit and culture in our politics.

As a nation we don't know who we are, what we should do, what we shouldn't and what to appreciate. Collectively, we are now happy that we have something in our constitution, a provision for a care-taker government, to guarantee neutral elections. We are content with the thinking that we are unique in the whole world, but we don't ever think that we are the nation who don't understand the very basic theme of democracy that elected representatives are the most trusted ones to work for us in all our important businesses.

If we say Dhaka-10 bye-election was not fair and rampantly rigged, then it is congruent with our constitutional premise; and if we say, Munshiganj-1 was fair, then it negates the premise that a care-taker government is needed to hold fair elections!