THE interim government has removed representatives of all local government institutions but for the union councils and appointed administrators, giving the absence of chairs and mayors from office as a reason in less than a fortnight after the downfall of the Awami League鈥檚 authoritarian regime that was toppled on August 5. The Local Government Division has removed all the 12 city mayors, 60 district council chairs, 493 upazila council chairs and vice-chairs and 323 municipal mayors in official notifications issued separately on August 19 in keeping with four local government ordinances that were promulgated on August 16. The district council chairs in the hill tracts have not been removed and no decision has yet been taken on the removal of union council chairs. Whilst the ordinances empower the government to remove such local government people on conditions of their having not attended three council meetings without valid reasons, having been involved in activities considered damaging to the council or the state or having refused to perform duties or been ineligible for mental or physical indisposition, the government is said to have done the job to ensure the delivery of public services that have run to problems as the representatives, mostly leaders of the Awami League, have been absent since the overthrow of the Awami League government.
This is a good move of the interim government given the situation where almost all who have led the local government institutions were elected in farcical, unfair and unrepresentative elections during the Awami League regime and almost all of them went into hiding after Sheikh Hasina had been deposed. What the interim government has done also carries a socio-political legitimacy as the government now running the affair of the state has supplanted an authoritarian regime after weeks of student protests spanning July-August that culminated into a student-mass uprising against all the ills that have gripped society for 15 years since 2009. Experts also believe that when the 鈥榚lected鈥� representatives remain absent from office and the government cannot hold local government elections right away, this appears a good move to reduce public sufferings. The way the Awami League held elections ultimately disenfranchised citizens, rendering local government institutions unaccountable to the electorates. But it is hoped that this should at best be a temporary measure to manage the crisis that the overthrow of the Awami League government has plunged the country into. Experts are of the opinion that administrators cannot ensure all local government services that mayors or council chairs usually do. The accountability of the people who would now run such institutions to the people they serve is important. The interim government should, therefore, have the elections to the local government institutions high on its agenda.
In the changed socio-political context, the government may not need to majorly overhaul the current electoral conduction system to hold the local government elections. The interim government should, therefore, make elections to local government institutions a priority agenda.