While presiding over the first meeting of the National Consensus Commission on Thursday, Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus said that reforms are aimed at legal and institutional frameworks that would prevent one from turning into an autocrat.
The Interim Government on the same day formed the 7 member "National Consensus Commission" led by the chief adviser to discuss with political parties on recommendations of the six commissions aimed at reaching a consensus on a number of political, constitutional and electoral reform agenda.
However, The National Consensus Commission will come up with a charter based on dialogues with political parties, and the next government will implement both long and short-term reforms in line with that charter.The commission was formed to review and adopt recommendations made by six key reform commissions.
The chief adviser urged some 100 leaders present from 26 political parties to seize this opportunity to build a new Bangladesh,so that future generations remember their contributions.
We are in full agreement with the chief adviser's call, and expect political leaders to play respective key roles in drafting the charter. We believe, since, it will be our politicians to represent the people, so they must responsibly decide how to fix the structure of the society. And decisions on reform proposals should be taken as soon possible to start work on those.
However, The National Consensus Commission will complete its consensus building tasks within its specified 6-month tenure.
At the same time, we make an urgent call to our politicians to realize the agonizing fact that since independence, the country's major political parties have repeatedly weaponized divisive political ideologies under several banners, such as the 'spirit of independence', 'Bengali vs Bangladeshi' identities, and namely 'Pro-India vs Pro-Pakistan'political parties.
Although these so-called ideological differences cannot be right away wiped out, but they have surely been abused and exaggerated to serve political agendas. This deliberate polarization has kept the country manifestly trapped in a cycle of a vicious division for decades on end. Thus, uniting under a single national umbrella for our political arties is a must.
We reiterate once more, our political parties must move beyond offering mere verbal support and actively assist the government on forming a meaningful charter. While insisting on a conclusive and confirmed general election date is logical, political parties must quick play an active role in resolving several critical national issues- and least to mention, improving law and order situation being one of them.
In conclusion, our voters have been denied from exercising their democratic franchise for too long. That said - processes to implement crucial reforms and preparations to hold the next upcoming general elections must run together.
