The Rule of Law
We want to live in a country where the jails are not filled with innocent men and women. This is a basic measure of the probity of any government. This is the rule of law. If there is one thing that the government can deliver for the Bangladeshi people it is this.
Now that the dust has settled from the election, the new government needs to get down to the business of governing.
This is no small task. Bangladesh has never been an easy country to govern, and the problems the incoming BNP government faces remain considerable.
The interim government has for the most part done a good job in stabilizing the economy and ensuring basic stability for the people of this country.
But the challenges remain. The kind of problems that the interim government inherited when it took office on August 8, 2024 are not the kind of problems that disappear overnight.
We have been saddled with ruinous power deals, a banking sector with trillions of takas worth of bad loans, to say nothing of an administration and law enforcement apparatus that had been politicized and hollowed out beyond recognition.
The question facing the incoming government, therefore, is where to start and what to tackle first.
There will be a loud drumbeat for them to start with the reforms of the July Charter that were passed in the referendum.
We would suggest that while these reforms should be instituted and implemented, at the end of the day, there is one reform that dwarfs all others, that the incoming government would be well advised to focus its initial attention on.
This is the rule of law.
If there is one thing that the government can deliver for the Bangladeshi people it is this.
The biggest failure of the interim government and black mark on its record was its inability to maintain rule of law, and this served to undermine its credibility almost fatally.
We want to live in a country where the jails are not filled with innocent men and women. This is a basic measure of the probity of any government.
We want to live in a country where law and order is not held hostage to mobs taking the law into their own hands.
This is the promise that has been made by the incoming Prime Minister, and if the government can deliver on this then it will go a long way to winning the confidence of the Bangladeshi people.
Zafar Sobhan is the Editor of the weekly Counterpoint.
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