DR MUHAMMAD Yunus, the chief adviser to the interim government, which was sworn in office three days after the fall of the Awami League government on August 5 in the face of a massive student-led mass uprising, finally addressed the nation on August 25 and revealed his government鈥檚 plans about reforms to state institutions. The chief adviser said that it would bring reforms to the electoral system, the judiciary, the law enforcement agencies, the financial sector, civil bureaucracy, education and health sectors and other institutions to ensure that these institutions do not fail to serve the people. Bangladesh badly needs democratic reforms for state institutions and need proper political and legal backing to sustain the reforms. Reforms of state institutions have, in fact, been a popular demand since at least 1990, when another student-mass movement ousted the then autocratic government of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. The major political parties then promised that they would establish the rule of law, representative government, a secular democratic atmosphere, the holding of credible parliamentary elections under a non-party caretaker government, a democratically elected parliament, independence of the judiciary and rights of the people, but did little to honour the promises.
Over the past three decades, there has also been much research and there have come many recommendations from think tanks and political parties on how to address these issues and how to bring effective and pro-people reforms that are available to all concerned. The Yunus administration, installed after another student-mass uprising, therefore, should assess the available reform proposals, update them through discussions with present-day stakeholders, and be specific about its course of action and the length of its reform agenda. What, however, comes as disappointing is that the chief adviser did not offer any specific roadmap as to how he would proceed with the reform agenda, nor did he specify about time that his administration would require to implement the agenda. Even if it has some sort of socio-political legitimacy, the principles of democracy do not permit any government to be in power for an unlimited time. In this regard, the chief adviser vaguely mentioned that the tenure of the interim government would be determined by the public, without specifying the process of how they would determine it or through what mechanism they would inform their decision to his government. Understandably, the entire process of reforms will understandably take time and some of them might even take years, but the incumbents should realise that the political parties might not be willing to give unlimited time to the Yunus administration and might logically demand an early election before the latter could finish implementation of their intended reforms.
Under the circumstances, the interim government should form commissions to prepare outlines for necessary reforms and engage all stakeholders, definitely including political parties, to build a national consensus on how the nation should unitedly proceed with the democratic reforms, on the one hand, and facilitate free and fair national elections to put the country under democratic governance.