Mother of all reforms
Crunch time for the proportionately represented upper house
The Consensus Commission appears to have reached an in principle agreement on a hundred member Upper House of the parliament, and is slated to discuss the mechanism for forming the house and its powers next week. This may well be the most important of all constitutional reforms on the table.
Let’s recap how we got here.
An upper house of the parliament is a key feature of BNP’s 31 Points reform proposals. It is expected that the Upper House will consist of individuals of high repute from various segments of the society who may not have been able to contribute to governance through the traditional political routes.
The concept of the Upper House has received support from most political parties and is a key component of the proposals put forward by Professor Ali Riaz’s Constitution Reform Commission.
The 31 points did not specify any particular mechanism through which the political parties would choose the members of the Upper House. Two options have emerged. First, the Upper House membership would be proportionate to votes received by the parties in the Lower House. This is the PR Upper House option, and is favoured by most political parties, the Riaz Commission, and the Nagorik Coalition. The alternative mechanism, proposed by the BNP, is that the membership would be proportionate to the seats won in the Lower House. Direct election of Upper House members is not an option favoured by any party or stakeholder group.
In principle, the key responsibility of the Upper House is to hold the executive government accountable. In practice, the Upper House design will need to strike a balance between providing checks and balances against the executive branch of the government without obstructing governance. This means, the Upper House should not mirror the composition of the Lower House (as would be the case in BNP’s preferred option), and it should have very specific responsibilities.
A PR Upper House with specific responsibilities as proposed by the Nagorik Coalition would strike this balance. Under their proposal, the incumbent party might not always have the majority in the proportionately represented Upper House. This would allow the opposition parties to stop the incumbent from embarking on undemocratic excesses.
For example, the PR Upper House with at least 32 BNP members might have been able to stop the Hasina regime from ramming through the 15th Amendment. This would have been very unlikely under the BNP’s preferred method where the party would have had only 10 Upper House members.
However, under the Nagorik Coalition proposal, the Upper House will not be able to initiate or obstruct legislations other than those relating to constitutional amendment and declaration of war. This means, the opposition parties will not be able to obstruct the incumbent from governing the country.
The Nagorik Coalition also proposes a number of vetting and investigative powers for the Upper House. Crucially, the Upper House can be used to form an All Party Parliamentary Committee that can play a crucial role in forming the election-time non-partisan government. Similarly, An All Party Parliamentary Committee comprising the members of the Upper House can vet and approve the executive nominations to the constitutional and oversight bodies such as the Election Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission, Human Rights Commission and others. The Upper House can also play important oversight roles.
As the largest democratic party, BNP stands to benefit from a PRUH in both government and opposition. President Ziaur Rahman welcomed into the opposition benches veteran politicians such as Ataur Rahman Khan as well as young guns like Suranjit Sengupta and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury. Similarly, a future BNP government would benefit from facing a group of capable parliamentarians in the Upper House. These opposition upper house parliamentarians, in time, could organically evolve into a capable democratic alternative to the BNP. That would be the way to strengthen our democracy in the long run.
This is why BNP should accept the concept of the proportionately represented upper house now, with the exact responsibility of the Upper House members, and other details such as what is the minimum threshold of votes for parties to be eligible for Upper House membership to be worked out after the election.
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The 31-point plan proposed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has raised several concerns. It is perplexing why some Bangladeshi individuals, after visiting places like London, return with ideas that seem impractical or misaligned with the country's realities.
One such idea is the proposal for universal healthcare. The Bangladeshi state currently lacks the fiscal and administrative capacity to implement such a system effectively. Drawing inspiration from the NHS model in the UK, which is often criticized as one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe, seems particularly ill-advised. Implementing a similar model in Bangladesh could lead to significant challenges and inefficiencies.
Another contentious point is the proposal for multilingual education. Bangladesh is fundamentally an ethnostate with a high degree of homogeneity, even more so than Japan. Any attempt to introduce multilingual education undermines this reality and could be seen as a betrayal of national unity. I firmly reject any plans to bring multiculturalism to Bangladesh. Even in the best-case scenario, such policies could be exploited by Islamists to divide Bengalis along religious lines. In the worst-case scenario, these policies could be used to facilitate the influx of non-Bengali Muslims into the country, thereby altering demographics and undermining Bengali nationalism, which is a core ideological adversary for Islamists.
This is not a baseless conspiracy theory. There is evidence that Islamists and some BNP leaders already view Hindus as separate from mainstream Bangladeshis, a perspective that Prime Minister Hasina has firmly opposed. She has even refused to label Hindus as minorities, asserting that they are simply Bengalis. This stance underscores the importance of maintaining a unified national identity.
Furthermore, the example of Erdogan in Turkey, one of the most successful Islamist leaders, illustrates the potential risks. Erdogan has been bringing in Arab and Pakistani migrants on an unprecedented scale, a move widely seen as an effort to undermine Turkish nationalism in the long run. This tactic could serve as a blueprint for similar efforts in Bangladesh, making it crucial to remain vigilant and oppose any policies that could lead to demographic changes and cultural division.
The proposed upper house reforms in Bangladesh raise several concerns. The idea that people's votes for local Members of Parliament (MPs) will translate into seats in the upper house based on the vote share of individual parties is problematic. Local MPs in Bangladesh essentially function as local government representatives because they are not allowed to vote against their parties in the national Parliament, and actual local governments lack power. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) proposed using the upper house as a legislative body to address this issue. However, the accountability mechanism for this proposal is flawed.
Voters will primarily cast their votes for local MPs based on local issues, without considering how their vote share will translate into upper house seats. Consequently, upper house legislators will lack political legitimacy and will likely be subservient to party leaders. At best, they might be technocratic appointments, and at worst, they could become a means of providing jobs for less capable relatives of actual politicians. It is true that most parties are unlikely to win an outright majority in the upper house, which could lead to some independent appointments from the civil service and judiciary. Despite acknowledging the flawed design of this system, I support this reform because it offers some benefits.
The real reform needed would be abolishing the amendment that prevents MPs from voting against their party. This change would turn MPs into accountable legislators and provide a check on the Prime Minister's power. However, this reform challenges the hegemonic position of party leaders in the political system, which is why all political parties oppose it. This situation is a classic example of leaders preferring to maintain their personal power within an organization rather than increase the organization's overall power.
Regarding the issue of women's seat share, I am also critical of this approach. Despite claims by feminists, there is no national women's consciousness, and having women's representation does not guarantee that these women will act in the interests of Bangladeshi women. This idea appeals to upper-middle-class women and the global elite at Davos. True women's representation would involve creating around 50 extra seats in Parliament that only women in Bangladesh can vote for through proportional representation. Women could choose to vote for either men or women, but these MPs would necessarily need to represent women's interests.
Once the current flawed reforms are implemented, they might buy some time before the country's political system collapses again in twenty years. After these reforms, the elites of Bangladesh should come together to create a new constitution for a second republic, which can be established when the current system eventually collapses. This new constitution should be short, less than 10-15 pages, and should emphasize separation of powers and federalism without including economic policy or social rights. It should avoid the directive principles found in the Indian constitution.