Two Courageous Women Behind the Change in Bangladesh

By M. M. Ali

The lightning speed of major events in the former Soviet empire, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East have caused some very worthwhile developments around the globe to go unnoticed. Amid dizzying changes that have universal implications, the less dramatic but no less important constitutional change that has been brought about by two courageous women in Bangladesh deserves due attention.

Prime Minister Khalida Zia and opposition leader Hasina Shaikh joined forces in an unprecedented way through the ballot box to do away with the presidential form of government and affirm faith in parliamentary democracy. Bangladesh has taken this route to eliminate the recurrent political crises it has faced in recent years.

Political pundits will tell you that countries with long histories which have been left behind in the economic and technological race tend to develop an unhealthy proclivity. In their rush to catch up, they turn to autocrats and military dictators who promise them shortcuts to immediate and accelerated economic growth. The Third World presents an array of examples among peoples freed of the colonial yoke. A strong executive certainly facilitates quicker decisions but not necessarily saner ones. Some countries have paid a heavy price for little more than promises of speedy results.

The physical and the political suffering experienced by the people of Bangladesh is probably unmatched by any other people in this century. In its brief 20-year history, the country has suffered intermittent cycles of floods and cyclones, and military coups and assassinations, each leaving behind a swath of human misery and economic devastation. Nature and man seem to conspire to keep unrest alive in Bangladesh.

The recent floods left visible evidence of their heavy toll of life and property. The two women at the helm of affairs are survivors of man-made tragedies. Prime Minister Khalida Zia is the widow of former President Ziaur Rehman, who was assassinated. Opposition leader Hasina Shaikh is the daughter of Shaikh MuJibur Rehmaii, the first prime minister, who was murdered in a military coup.

Political instability has added to the problems of Bangladesh, and the tug-of-war between the prime minister and the president only aggravated the element of uncertainty in public affairs. It is to end the potential for continued intra-government friction that the constitutional amendment has been made.

The change is based on the premise that a deliberative and consensus-seeking arrangement offers a better chance for political stability and socio-economic continuity. The checks and balances built into a presidential form of government work well when the executive and the legislative branches remain within their given constitutional orbits. Unfortunately, Bangladesh has repeatedly experienced trespasses and violations from the office of the president. Interestingly, Pakistan has incorporated the potential for executive-executive overlap into the Eighth Amendment of its Constitution and already has experienced two constitutional crises.

The speed with which the presidential prime ministerial issue was approached, although Bangladesh had just emerged from mass civil unrest and a bitterly fought election in February, followed by the huge cyclone that took a heavy toll of life and property in April, indicates the priority given to rearrangement of the political equation. An amendment to the Constitution was spearheaded by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Prime Minister Khalida Zia, and backed by the Awami League of Hasina Shaikh and other opposition parties in the 330-member Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament).

The amendment lodged the state's executive authority with the prime minister, who is accountable to the national legislature, and made the office of the president only ceremonial. It passed by 307 votes, with none opposing, on Aug. 6. This vote of the Jatiya Sangsad was put to a popular referendum on Sept. 15 and was adopted by an overwhelming majority of 17,951,959 to 3,252,668 votes. Democratic forces of the country thus sent a clear message that from now on the political game is to be played by the rules of parliamentary democracy, with all institutions and players remaining in their assigned places.

Unfortunately, however, the durability of this measure also is dependent on the economic condition of the country.

The Economics of It All

Bangladesh is a disaster-prone land where a population of about 120 million people is crammed into an area of 144,000 sq. km. Some 26,000 sq. km., 18 percent of the country, is flooded each year. Often nearly 60 percent of the cultivable land goes under water. During the April 1991 floods, more than 75 percent of the country was affected, with tremendous loss of human life, livestock, crops and property.

Besides the natural calamities, the country has to live with daunting human realities. The population growth rate has shown no signs of slowing down. Government census figures indicate a population of 43 million people in 1947; 52 million in 1971; and over 120 million in 1991. The World Bank estimates the population of Bangladesh will be nearly 200 million by the year 2025.

Economic statistics are equally grim. The present per capita income of Bangladesh is a paltry $170. Few countries of the world are as dependent on foreign assistance for economic survival as Bangladesh. On June 30, 1990, the total debt of Bangladesh stood at $10.68 billion. This included soft- and hard-term loans, and more than $697 million owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Debt servicing for the nation's foreign loans alone rose from $17.7 million in 1973-74 to $301.7 million in 1989-90. The whole package of external debt, including the IMF obligation, called for debt servicing of $567.1 million in 1989-90. This severe burden has been further increased by the sudden loss of approximately $450 million in annual remittance from expatriate workers in the Middle East as a result of the Gulf war.

It is under such clouds that the country has readied its fourth Five-Year Plan. Of the total financial resources needed for the plan, 52 percent will be raised from external sources, Finance and Planning Minister Saifur Rehman explains. Greater reliance, he says, will be placed on the private sector in the generation of internal resources.

An AID Bangladesh Consortium has pledged $2.3 billion for developmental programs. The World Bank (IBRD) and the Asian Development Bank have offered separate aid packages. The government of Khalida Zia has also approached countries like Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the European Community for bilateral assistance.

Whether these external efforts will be matched by internal efforts is questionable. The Value Added Tax (VAT) proposal of the finance minister, through which the government hoped to raise at least 15 percent of the Annual Development Plan, already faces strong opposition from Hasina Shaikh's Awami League. Opposition parties have threatened a national campaign against it.

Because of spiraling inflation in the country, the prime minister is under severe pressure to increase government salaries. Both the IMF and the World Bank, however, strongly opposed such salary increases. The irony of it all is that over the past 30 years, IBRD and RAF (and now the Asian Development Bank as well) prescriptions and formulas have done little to alleviate poverty and problems in the Third World. Countries like Bangladesh, however, have to live with them, and adjust their political as well as economic systems accordingly.

M. M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.