Civil Society Initiative for Accountable Development
Needed awareness about citizen's bill of rights
Dr. Iffath A. Sharif
The enormity and complexity of Bangladesh's economy and society highlight the need for addressing a number of systemic problems, one of which is the electoral process. That elections are held at national and local levels, even though flawed, is a positive feature of our political system. However, the current democratic process does not guarantee pro-poor outcomes. Divisiveness related to party politics is evident in almost all areas of society and the economy, which in turn has weakened a range of institutions (e.g. educational, civil society, business, cultural etc.) that are fundamental to the progression of any country. Reforms to our political process are extremely important, but also extremely difficult. I applaud therefore the joint CDP/Daily Star/Prothom Alo effort to initiate a process whereby citizens are encouraged to vote for the candidate and not for the party in the upcoming elections. Such a public initiative helps to create momentum surrounding the advance of political accountability, and I hope that some concrete change will result from this effort. However I feel that more fundamental to bringing about political accountability is to create a demand for it at a grassroots level, and publicly communicate this demand to our politicians. This would require three basic steps. First, we would have to create mass awareness on a "citizen's bill of rights" which would list the minimum level of public service every citizen should be entitled to on a daily basis. Such a "bill of rights" would include the following: rights to earning a decent livelihood; rights to meaningful education and proper healthcare; rights to security of self and property; rights to basic infrastructure like clean water, uninterrupted power, reliable gas supply, access to telephones, good roads; rights to freedom of speech; rights to freedom of mobility in a world void of hartals; rights to freedom of association; and rights to a fair system where rules are the same for everybody. This list is only an example and by no means complete. Second, we could conduct Gallop-type polls to score each and every candidate who run for a seat in the elections of 2007 on how well she or he had delivered on this "citizen's bill of rights" in recent years or during the Awami League's rule during 1996-2001 (where applicable), and make these scores publicly available. Third, in the run up to the elections of 2007, similar Gallop-type polls could be conducted to keep track of how each candidate is doing in terms of the level of voter support. Allowing for such systematic informational flow between the public and our politicians will perhaps sow the seeds of a demand-driven political process where the politicians contest elections for the causes of their respective constituencies, and not for their own personal ones. Dr. Iffath A. Sharif is a full-time mother and part-time faculty member of Dept. of Economics North South University.
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