A tale of four discourses

The discourse on peace is the newest in the field. As its name suggests, it has been created by our Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus. He has asked our two principal political parties, AL and BNP -- to sign a peace deal, participate in the election, and form a coalition government. But, is this a timely call? Does it reflect the current political reality? No. Then why does a man who, I believe, deserves a place in world history for adding a humane character -- microcredit -- to capitalism, propose such a deal. Is he not aware of our political realities? I think he knows better than anyone else because he established an empire -- the Grameen Bank -- from scratch. He lives his everyday life mingling with people from grassroots.

I believe that he has proposed the deal because he has been frustrated by the way our political parties bicker, and how they always fail to stand together for national interests. But the call is, nonetheless, untimely and unrealistic because the problem in front of us at the moment is to ensure a fair election.

Despite all the good efforts of the advisers, it seems that the chief adviser (CA) has been implementing the design of his political party BNP, intentionally or unintentionally, reducing the chances of a fair election. What is needed from a man like Prof. Yunus in this situation is for him to create pressure on the CA to stop his partisan maneuvers and behave like the guardian of the state.

The discourse on dialogue is created by our foreign mentors, usually very low ranked bureaucrats (e.g. under secretaries, assistant secretaries etc) at the foreign offices of powerful countries like the US and UK. As I wrote in the past, dialogue is touted in the West as a popular method of dealing with conflicts. The success of a dialogue depends on many factors. First, the issue creating the controversy has to be solvable through dialogues. Second, a leveling playing field needs to be created for the conflicting parties. Finally, the conflicting parties have to be willing to sit together for dialogue.

But the controversy, which we have in our political field at the moment, is hardly an issue for dialogue. Rather it is a matter of making all the arrangements necessary to conduct a fair election. During its tenure the BNP-Jamaat alliance had manned the Election Commission (EC), the law enforcement agencies and key bureaucratic positions, such as home secretary and establishment secretary, with its flunkies so that it could manipulate the election.

The job of the caretaker government is to undo this, and man those institutions with efficient non-partisan people. And it is not a novel job, but routine work for a caretaker government. All the previous caretaker governments did this. But this time the CA is destroying the spirit of the caretaker government by making decisions in favor of the BNP-Jamaat alliance.

We developed the caretaker government system because our political parties don't trust each other, and they try to use every possible means to manipulate elections. When we have such a situation, why do our foreign mentors call for a dialogue? They are either not aware of our political reality or are assured that whoever comes to power would be loyal to them. And they do not need to worry about a fair election.

The third discourse, the discourse on a timely election, is being operationalzed by the BNP-Jamaat alliance. They persuaded the CA to declare the election schedule so that they could have an election with their party men controlling the EC, bureaucracy, and other state machineries. The AL also tried to employ the same strategy in 2001, but failed.

The caretaker government at the time rightly did not heed AL's advice. It took speedy steps to fix the EC and bureaucracy to ensure the fairness of the election. At that time the CA was a non-partisan man, but this time the CA is a partisan man. So far, the third discourse seems to be the dominant one in terms of its ability to influence the important structures of the state such as the caretaker government, election commission and bureaucracy.

The discourse demanding the resignation of the CA is in the process of evolving. History suggests that it has a chance of becoming dominant over time. Examples are myriad at home and abroad. This type of discourse became dominant many times in our political history. General Ershad could not stay in power even after holding unfair elections in 1986 and 1988. He had to step down. The BNP could not sustain its rule, holding an unfair election in February 1996.

The discourses on resignation take some time to establish themselves. They need mass support. But the context is ready for the ascendance of the discourse on resignation. The AL has created the context by its recent actions. The best move the AL made was that it willingly or unwillingly accepted a BNP man as the CA, and gave him time to show that he could rise above petty partisan interests.

So far the man has totally failed in the task. His everyday actions suggest that he does not put his money where his mouth is. He tells everyone, mainly foreign delegates, that he is doing everything necessary to ensure a fair election, but his actions demonstrate otherwise. A few days ago Mahfuz Anam, a leading political commentator and the Editor of The Daily Star, noted with sadness how the CA has turned "problem creator" instead of a "problem solver."

The CA's last controversial effort was the appointment of two men of the BNP-Jamaat alliance as new election commissioners. His actions suggest that either he is a man of double standards, or someone is twisting his arm from behind the scene. But we don't know for sure which one is true. We certainly know that as a teacher at the University of Dhaka he led the pro-BNP faction of the teachers, and was rewarded with the chair of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and presidency of the Republic for his political activism.

If the CA continues to serve his benefactors, fails to put his money where his mouth is, and the advisers ultimately fail to bring him to the right direction, the discourse demanding his resignation will gain ground. The 14 party alliances just needs to make sure that its movement is non-violent, and sensitive to the well-being of ordinary people and the country's economy.

AJM Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan is a faculty at the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Dhaka.