How to fund our politics?

Unlike those countries dominated by one party, we are fortunate to have a multitude of active and semi-active parties. In our political cohort, we have at least two big parties, which have controversial origins. The ways these parties were laid out by the military dictators to legalise their authority, and thrived on allegedly abusing state-machineries and peoples' exchequer, it appeared to some that ousting of the masterminds from power would inevitably evaporate these parties. But, they remained in existence splendidly with vigour. The older parties with their past-oriented political ideology, dependence on aging leaders, failure to realise the post-war expectation of the society, and an inability to provide glamour to the larger youth-segment of the nation helped the juvenile military-planned initially pseudo-democratic parties to sustain and thrive. At the end, Bangladesh is benefited having a strong multi-party culture. Sometimes, a better end justifies its cloudy means.

It is imperative now that we incorporate these political parties into our development efforts and nation building activities. An organisation without a goal will not only be self-limiting, but also be destructive for others. Our parties should be goal-oriented, and are supposed to provide a sound grassroots basis for forming policy of poverty alleviation and development, and provide opportunities for our leaders to earn experience and acquire expertise in democracy-building. The parties, we elect to our assembly, should play enormous roles to the advancement of a well functioning, pluralistic party system and egalitarian environment in Bangladesh.

Like any other organisation, to see our parties succeed, we need to finance them to organise, operate and thrive. Funding helps political parties to maintain themselves as organisations. Financial resources are also required by campaigning candidates who run for political offices. We have to acknowledge that parties need money, and parties need to identify potential sources of finance, and finally, the state has to make regulations making the system of collecting and disbursing of funds transparent. Failure to channel money through a just and appropriate mechanism may lead our parties to access it by engaging in criminal activities, using black money, selling themselves to businessmen, different interest and pressure groups, and even to overseas power-blocks. It is already commonly suspected that multinational oil, gas, power, automobile, technology and pharmaceutical companies have started taking a keen interest in Bangladeshi politics.

Political parties are multifaceted organisations consisting of multiple levels (Union, Thana, District and Central) and multiple units (the mother party and ancillary organisations for students, youth, women, peasants, doctors, etc,) at each level. With regard to funding of parties, it is necessary to specify which unit at which level in the party receive the contributions. Assigning positions at the right sphere, delegating authority, and creating a reporting structure toward the high command will create transparency in the money transfer system and yield comforts to the contributors who would like to see their money well-managed and well-spent.

A party must identify its funding sources, which may include: resources mobilised by the parties themselves, such as membership fees on elected representatives of each unit and level; rent and other incomes from property, businesses and publications (electronic and prints) by the party; contributions from individuals; contributions from certain caucus, such as, trade unions, professional bodies, and large organisations and corporations.

As money corrupts us, it does so to our politics too. There is a known need to have some kind of regulation on political finance. We need to work out the compulsion the parties have to the state and the public in terms of financial accountability and transparency. Laws should be promulgated to clarify which sources of funds can be accessed, the upper limits on contribution from a single source, and which types of non-monetary resources (e.g., gifts, publication materials, free radio and TV time) can be admitted. It can further detail on how expatriate Bangladeshis can contribute, and whether people not registered as voters will be eligible to endow. The thorny issue of the relationship between NGOs and political parties should not also be left vague.

In absence of a functional regulatory system, our parties are taking funds from wherever and whoever they are receiving it from. Money is pouring into politics and flowing through elections without concern or vigilance. People who make these contributions to our leaders and parties, in most cases, do not share the views of the regular Bangladeshi. We end up having politicians who represent the wrong section of the society.

In such a practice, if it goes on unstopped, money will solely decide who will be our leader. The parliamentary members, elected this way, will make decisions based on what will help themselves and their contributors financially than what is better for the underprivileged. A parliament with members, elected with heavy contribution from industries and businesses, will obstruct making regulations that promote environment-friendly manufacturing practice, safe working conditions for workers, or assure high quality in products and services created for public consumption. As relevant example, we have seen that our lawyer-dominated parliament obstructed the finance minister's plans to bring law practices under obligatory taxation system. A parliament member, who is a dealer of new cars, campaigned to pass a bill banning import of re-conditioned cars. Another parliament member, who is a dealer of cellular phones, made all sorts of efforts to ease having such a phone, leaving the complicated procedure of getting land phones unaffected.

As our existing lawmakers, beneficiary of these hazards, may not volunteer in these reforms, different pressure groups within the civil society and the international donors should come forward with plans to reform political and campaign financing to help democracy consolidate further in Bangladesh.

Hasanat Alamgir who taught Business Administration at North South University, Dhaka is a Doctoral Student at University of British Columbia, Vancouver.