UNB, Dhaka :
With the aim of boosting its popularity following a five-year rule that left many incumbency factors, the Awami League is now looking to concentrate on bettering governance standards more than ever before.
Party insiders say that it was always the aim of the AL to establish good governance in the country at any cost and shrug off the reports on their “dwindling” popularity saying that this is a normal phenomenon of a party to have its approval rate falling after ruling the country for five years.
That is why the AL, the oldest political party of the country, has been engaging its efforts to establish good governance in the country to improve its approval rating before the next general election which, the party leaders say, is still five years away.
“A democratic political party would always want to establish good governance, and Awami League being the oldest party in the country is no different.
As such it is engaging its efforts to satisfy the people at any cost, for which establishing good governance is one of the tools,” AL presidium member Kazi Zafarullah told UNB over telephone.
After winning the 10th general election, he said, the new government that was formed saw a good number of ministers from the previous term (2009-13) axed. Kazi Zafarullah offers the plain reason of failure to perform their duties properly as the factor for these ministers losing their jobs.
This corroborates what AL general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam told reporters after taking oath on January 12 at Bangabhaban: “The Prime Minister relieved those who failed to perform their duties properly while they were in office.”
Zafarullah said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina deliberately refrained from choosing many heavyweight ministers for her present cabinet due to allegations existing against them, even in cases where they had run their ministries satisfactorily.
“The party chief wanted to start the new government with the clean-imaged people in her cabinet,” he said. Apart from this the Anti-Corruption Commission is playing a big role to help the government regain its popularity.
To many observers, the ACC’s recent activities showed that the government is very much determined to establish good governance in the country.
