Decaying political duopoly in Bangladesh?

In simple terms, duopoly in microeconomic theory is a market structure with dominance of two rival firms contesting in the same market with differentiated products. Both firms compete to expand market share by lowering the unit prices that benefit consumers. One reacts to the actions of the other. The two reaction curves intersect to determine market equilibrium. But the equilibrium is unstable and holds for a very short run.

Then, the market goes off-balance and another bout of intra-firm dogfight resumes. This goes off and on. Both firms consequently realise that both are losing profit. Then, they come to a realisation and negotiate for collusion turning into a virtual monopoly. Collusion results in overpricing. As a result, consumers flee from both in search of close substitutes. Thus, a new firm evolves. To safeguard the market shares, the duopolistic firms engage in cheating. So, collusion breaks down and the same old practices come into play, again and again.

The above analogy may apply to political market as well. In this market, voters are the consumers. They care for an adequate delivery of services, as promised by political parties in national elections. Politicians raise their hopes by promises, they cannot deliver. In fact, they act otherwise for personal enrichment and own empowerment by extorting the general public. Bangladesh politics is being dominated by two major political parties (AL and BNP). They respectively share 40 percent and 30 percent of the political market in terms of votes. The rest are independent and shared by a host of small political parties. The small ones cannot make dents on this market. So, for political identities and self-interest, they tend to cluster around these two parties instead of forming a competitive fringe.

Basic characters of both major parties are the same in terms of rent-seeking and extortions. They have no major policy and philosophical differences. They differ in compositions. AL is more homogeneous than BNP on this count. The former is composed largely of pro-liberation and progressive forces while the latter is heterogeneous consisting of pro-liberation, anti-liberation and backward-leaning forces. However, there are reactive forces on both sides. Heterogeneity generates some disloyalty, conflicts and often self-inflicted wounds. Also, there are obvious differences in the genesis of these two major parties.

AL was born at the grass-root level in public domain and BNP was born in the cantonment. Thus, their outlooks are naturally somewhat different. Rhetorically, both parties champion democracy. But neither of them practices it within the party. Parliamentary democracy has turned in elected monarchy, based on respective family legacies. It appears parasitic. In a natural course, parasites may eat up each other to clean up the drainage system, eventually. The members of the parliament cannot freely speak their minds in fear of retributions by their own party masters. Some of them live in suffocation for conscience biting. The rest don't care. It is needless to talk about quality of many of them including the ones on the ivory tower. No clean air is blowing in the current Bangladesh political environment.

The two major parties excel in corruption, revenge, venoms, and mutual tearing down. At least in these respects, they are on the same page. On other fronts, they are on a collision course. They forget that people elect them to represent their concerns and interests in the parliament. People give them responsibilities, not power, by electing them to serve the nation for enhancing economic and social well-being of all. In contrast, they pursue their personal interests and self-serving agendas. For such behaviour on their part, people have been paying exorbitantly high prices for nearly four decades. This is already too long a period for people to pay so high price. Many voters excepting the blindfolded ones are now disenchanted with both parties. If they find a viable alternative, they will flee from both.

Some movement is already in formation at the grass-root level. There are some such examples in the recent union council elections. Such voters will eventually organise themselves and some national leadership will emerge. Both parties must take note of such development. The young voters are well-informed, educated and technology proficient. They will take advantage of modern information technology to organise among themselves instead of waiting too long for someone to lead them. Both parties must draw lessons from the episode of Tahrir Square in Egypt.

Both parties must attend the parliament, change their mindset and behaviour, negotiate in good faith to reach a compromise on vital national issues, practice true democracy at all levels and practice what they preach. The top leaders must lead by examples. People are losing faith and both parties are in a decaying mode. They cite people as the ultimate source of power in a democratic system. Do they really mean it? Once elected, they grab power and forget the people. They must not forget that politics is the best way to serve people, not a means to serve self-interest. If they really believe in people, they must hold national referenda as a part of direct democracy to get final verdicts on the desirability of hartal (so-called democratic right of political parties in violation of fundamental rights of the people), caretaker government (an undemocratic product of political barbarism and collusion as a doctrine of necessity), and the 15th Amendment of the Constitution (if an inducement to entice the major opposition party for negotiation).

Show the courage by practicing politics of adulthood, decency and mutual respect. Let the ultimate source of power settle these thorny issues as the two parties and their respective allies are moving away from the path of expected collaboration to collision. Stop the blame games and act in the best interest of the people, as promised. Enough is enough. Wake up. People are watching. Time is the essence for a third course to evolve.

The intent of this brief write-up is not to be prophetic. All the aforementioned are factual, indeed.

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Matiur Rahman is the MBA Director and JP Morgan Chase Endowed Professor of finance at McNeese State University, USA.