Abstract
What have political parties done for the enactment of the Local Government (Union Parishads) (Second Amendment) Act, 1997 (hereinafter the Act of 1997) that seems to have a greater impact on creating space for women’s participation in politics in Bangladesh by introducing direct election for women in three reserved seats at the local government?
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Notes
- 1.
Union Parishad (Union Council) is the third tier of the existing local government system in Bangladesh. The other two tiers are Upazila Parishad at Upazila (Sub-district) level and Zila Parishad at Zila (District) level. As regards the structure of the UP, it is composed of an elected Chairman, nine members directly elected from nine wards, and three women members. For the election of women members, nine wards are grouped into three wards, which are generally called reserved seats for women.
- 2.
These parties included the Bangladesh Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jammat-E-Islami Bangladesh (JIB), and Jatiya Party (JP). These parties were selected because they had the majority of representations in the National Parliament for the past 15 years.
- 3.
It is worth noting here that when the political party leaders were interviewed, the Parliament was dissolved. Hence, all MPs were ex-MPs.
- 4.
One may wonder why other parties seem to be less enthusiastic about women’s political representation. As a matter of fact, this group of political parties seems to be conservative in their outlook toward women. In the context of developing countries like Bangladesh, a fundamentalist Islamic political party like BJI belongs to this group since they do not believe in women’s free mobility outside home and their involvement in the public arena.
- 5.
This is an opinion expressed by a top leader from Awami League.
- 6.
22 out 33 respondents expressed such views.
- 7.
23 out of 33 respondents expressed such views.
- 8.
26 out of 33 respondents did not have a clear understanding about the Act.
- 9.
12 out 33 respondents expressed such views.
- 10.
21 out of 33 respondents expressed this view.
- 11.
18 out of 33 respondents expressed such views.
- 12.
This indicates the existence of a typical political culture in Bangladesh where the relationship between the ruling and opposing party is adversarial in nature. Usually, the government does not accept even worthy recommendations from the opposition. Equally, the opposition does not praise any of the worthy initiatives of the ruling party. The most important feature of Bangladeshi politics is that different political party leaders do not maintain a working relationship with their opposition. An example is the two women leaders (Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia), the leaders of two leading political parties having virtually no communication between them. As such, this kind of conflicting relationship always hinders the process of reaching unanimity on a particular issue.
- 13.
Interview with an ex-MP from AL.
- 14.
JIB had only three (3) Parliament members out of the total 330 (300 general seats and 30 seats reserved for women) seats in the Seventh Parliament (1996–2001).
- 15.
26 out 33 respondents expressed such views.
- 16.
Opinion expressed by some leaders of the AL, BNP, and JP.
- 17.
Opinion expressed by an ex-member of the Parliament from Awami League.
- 18.
23 out of 33 respondents expressed such views.
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Panday, P.K. (2013). Women’s Political Participation in Bangladesh: The Role of Political Parties. In: Jamil, I., Askvik, S., Dhakal, T. (eds) In Search of Better Governance in South Asia and Beyond. Public Administration, Governance and Globalization, vol 3. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7372-5_11
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