In Search of Parliamentary Opposition in Bangladesh

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

King’s College

Introduction 

Political opposition in Bangladesh is a matter of suspicion rather than appreciation, suppression rather than collaboration and disruption rather than construction. Ruling parties are historically comfortable in parliament in the absence of strong opposition. Opposition parties, on the other hand, find parliament ‘useless’ and are comfortable operating outside of it. There is no denying that the opposition is structurally marginalised in the Westminster parliamentary system. Yet, leading Westminster systems across the British Commonwealth have successfully institutionalised the opposition and installed it as a government-in-waiting and the most important safety valve against constitutional breakdown and extra-constitutional interference in politics. What is Bangladesh’s problem with ‘the opposition’, then? This piece argues that ruling parties in Bangladesh refuse to acknowledge the opposition as such, and this leads to its chronic non-institutionalisation. Opposition parties thus remain reactive, disruptive and unforgivingly extra-parliamentary. 

Five Key Models of Constitutional Opposition 

Democracy is a matter of competition and hence requires dissent. While there may be some other hybrid variants of the models, Ludger Helms’ “five key models of institutional and constitutional opposition” reflect the general landscape. The models include, first, the Westminster system of parliamentary opposition that has no veto or co-governing powers. The second model is the German system of parliamentary opposition that has a substantial veto power in policy making. A third model includes the semi-presidential system of French parliamentary opposition that has the potential to restrict the presidency in cases of divided control of parliament and presidency. Other models include, fourthly, the U.S. model of institutional separation between the Congress and presidency and, fifth, the referendum prone direct democratic opposition of Switzerland. A cursory analysis of the five models suggests that two of those, the American system of separation of powers and French system of semi-presidentialism, channel the constitutional conflicts between institutions towards partisan competition. Three others – the Swiss, German and British systems – redirect partisan competition towards parliamentary channels, which is usually called the parliamentarisation of opposition. 

The executive, legislature and judiciary in the U.S. are designed in a way that prevents the capture of all institutions by one political party at any given time. Institutions being pitted against each other, different parties controlling those at a given time constitute the driving force of the checks and balances model. Likewise, the French presidency, parliament and local governments interact with each other in a way that allows divided control of those institutions by different political parties. The Swiss and German models of parliamentarianism are systematically constrained in a way that confers a vast amount of co-governing power on minority parties through institutional devices like bicameral legislatures, strong parliamentary committees, assertive constitutional courts and plebiscitary referendums. 

The UK model, the closest match to Bangladesh, has procedurally marginalised the opposition within the House and beyond. Apart from keeping the leader of the opposition and his/her team as a mere government-in-waiting, it offers very limited space for them in the policy design process. This drawback, however, is significantly compensated by a strong departmental select committee system where cross-party and/or non-party approaches are common. Also, conventional tools like informal consultation – known as ‘usual channel’ – in conducting legislative business, a staunchly non-partisan speaker and numerous designated opposition and backbench days on the floor mean that opposition voices are well heard. The opposition party’s own watchdog body, called the shadow cabinet, constantly presents a parallel government in waiting. 

(Non)-Recognition of Constitutional Opposition in Bangladesh  

Recognition of the opposition’s right to exist and act within the system has been characterised as the “polyarchic” quality of democracy: it welcomes opposition and recognises that it has as much importance as participation. The opposition’s participation in parliamentary process is therefore subject to a very basic pre-condition of recognising the necessity of its existence as such. In fact, the presence or absence of this recognition differentiates democracies from the “illiberal and/or non-democratic regimes”. 

Bangladesh’s dysfunctional parliamentary opposition unfortunately emerges at this very initial point. As discussed above, the competing political parties’ reluctance to see their existence as mutually reinforcing and as an important safeguard for the sustenance of democracy has hurt the development of a liberal-conservative bipartisanship in Bangladesh. Reasons behind this are historical as well as cultural.  

From a historic point view, political opposition in this region has almost always been indoctrinated along local, regional and global geo-political interest lines. The Bangladeshi experience of opposition has fallen prey to the enduring geo-political and military rivalry of India and Pakistan. Major political groups in Bangladesh are strongly believed to be sponsored, or at least supported, by the opposing sides of the rivalry. Therefore, rather than being based on broad based ideological competition, Bangladeshi political blocks are characterised by personal animosity and mutual distrust. 

Culturally speaking, the opposition has never been a ‘government-in-waiting’ and has been diverted to extra-parliamentary channels of street agitation, violence, coups and backdoor conspiracies. The institutional difficulties faced by the opposition in Bangladesh are two-fold. First, the opposition does not have easy access to different sources of expert advice and support; and secondly, opposition parties remain seriously disadvantaged in terms of parliamentary time allocated to them. While this is true of the Westminster model as well, our pulse of opposition hardly abides by the 'rules of the game' and does not remain confined to parliament. This agitative pulse has a psychological explanation. In the confrontational winner-takes-all politics of Bangladesh, being a peaceful institutional opposition is as unattractive as recognising the opposition. Opposition parties have participated in parliament, albeit only occasionally, in reactive rather than proactive ways. Apart from opposing the government in every possible way, opposition parties have hardly tried to avail themselves of whatever scope they may have had to initiate legislative and policy measures. 

In terms of institutionalised opposition, the experience of the Fifth Parliament (1991-1995) stands remarkably in contrast with all other parliaments so far. Until the mass resignation from parliament in 1994, opposition members and government backbenchers showed a very heightened level of commitment to parliamentary scrutiny and assertiveness. Individual MPs in the fifth parliament initiated eighty-two private member bills which was more than the total of all the previous four parliaments. Around eighty percent of the motions seeking explanation for government’s policy failure and ninety percent of the motions seeking explanation for administrative malpractices were moved by the opposition MPs. The promises of the fifth parliament, unfortunately, were short lived. 

Concluding Observations 

The internal organisation of political parties in Bangladesh is based on a rule of loyalty and clientelist reciprocity. Under such a system, government backbenchers and official opposition alike turn towards an ‘Old Tory idealisation’ of parliamentary representation. During Britain’s ‘Old Tory time’ parliamentarians did not recognise, or comprise, opposition, or act as critics or watchdogs of the Crown. They were rather delegates of local and constituency interests without any say whatever in the ‘great matters of the state’. Bangladeshi parliamentarians have shown a similar delegate tendency vis-à-vis their respective parties and neglected their individual and collective trusteeship over national interests. 

Absent the ‘parliamentarisation of opposition’, very few of Bangladesh’s eleven parliaments so far could perform to their full potential. Though the trend has been contained in the tenth and in the incumbent eleventh parliament, Bangladesh’s current problem is altogether different. It is one of a domesticated opposition elected through a back door political deal of unholy alliance resulting in a symbolic and makeshift and “blurred” opposition to make the parliament look bipartisan. It is a deal that finds comfort in allies pretending to be the opposition. It appears that Bangladesh has fooled the Westminster parliamentary system like none in modern political history. 

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury is Assistant Professor of Law, University of Chittagong & Doctoral Candidate (Legislative Studies), King’s College London 

Suggested citation: M Jashim Ali Chowdhury, ‘In Search of Parliamentary Opposition in Bangladesh’ IACL-AIDC Blog (21 January 2021) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2021-posts/2021/1/21/in-search-of-parliamentary-opposition-in-bangladesh