As the entire world welcomed 2018 by lighting the skies with dazzling fireworks, singing songs, beating drums, playing flutes and arranging open street celebrations – our law enforcement agencies have repeatedly asked the citizens to lock themselves indoor. As far as the celebrations are free of indecency and vulgarity, there were actually no ethical or moral restrictions to celebrate the New Year. Haven’t our so-called elites celebrated the New Year’s Eve inside our lavish and exclusive clubs amid concerts? Did the police go and stop them?
However, similar to the saying morning shows the day, we got a clear hint by the last day of 2017 how the New Year may turn out to be. The year began with the country’s three state organs — executive, legislative and judiciary — being locked in a bitter conflict to determine which one was mightier. It was a common scenario almost everyday in the previous year where judiciary and executive branches remained busy in exchanging words of hatred and disrespect.
Especially, the conflict between the then Chief Justice and the ruling party’s clash over the amendment and observations surrounding the 16th amendment had frustrated all. Such a stringent had it become, that the CJ was forced to leave the country along with his wife, which was an unprecedented history in the history of judiciary. Also, it’s perhaps the first time in the history of Bangladesh that a New Year commenced without a chief justice heading the country’s highest legal office – the Supreme Court.
Soaring prices of daily essentials, increasing traffic jams and uninterrupted looting of banks and financial institutions, growing number of rapes, abductions and killings, rampant corruption in the education sector etc – are what we have inherited from the previous year. Addressing all the issues in the last year in power would be a colossal challenge for the government.
There was no competition in the political arena since BNP was too busy with the cases against its chief Khaleda Zia rather than functioning in line with a proper set of strategies. Even though, the Election Commission had arranged a dialogue inviting all registered political parties to get suggestions for holding the upcoming 11th parliamentary elections scheduled in late 2018 or early 2019, the opinions of party chiefs make it clear that the possibility of a free, fair and credible polls is dim. Moreover, all major parties, including BNP, laid emphasis to arrange the polls under a non-party election-time government, and once again the EC showed its incapability in this regard.
There is widespread speculation and an apparent fear that, the year-2018 could be seriously marred by a big-scale political turmoil, if the ruling party does not take practical and acceptable approaches to address the prevailing deadlocks.
2018 is the last year and the last opportunity for the ruling party to admit and amend all its wrongdoings. The most important truth it must acknowledge – no party is meant to rule a nation forever. Concurrently, it should focus on restoring discipline in the banking, financial sectors while ensure rule of law, which also includes guaranteeing safety and security of the people. It must also allow the EC to function independently since no year would be more important for the current EC as this year. Lastly, it must realise that the people have become fed up, if their feelings and sufferings are not taken into serious consideration an unwarranted movement may well uproot AL’s illegitimate ambition to stay in power forever. With the clock ticking fast, time is very little to make the best of 2018. Wake up before it’s too late.
