136th IPU Conference

We are happy that Bangladesh successfully hosted one of the largest gatherings of parliamentarians through the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and are heartened by some of the very positive messages that came out of the conference. But to think that holding the IPU conference in Dhaka is a reflection of the confidence of the international community in our democracy would be to stretch it too far.

Out of the several key points mentioned in the IPU communiqué, one of major relevance remains the overwhelming influence of money in politics, to which, politics in Bangladesh and other countries have become captive. When politics centres so much on money, it itself obviously becomes a tool for making more money through all means necessary. The end result being any lack of political accountability and transparency accompanied with massive surges in corruption, such as that we currently see all over.

National interest, meanwhile, is hampered. Individual rights are all but ignored and collectively denied. State institutions are, moreover, hijacked by special interests to serve their cause alone which is almost always in conflict with the concepts of egalitarianism, rule of law, social justice, etc., leading to unsustainable levels of societal inequality.

But it is precisely because of its unsustainability that this trend must be reversed. And, most importantly, it is the moral obligation of politicians and parliamentarians to correct the current shortcomings that are forcing immeasurable sufferings on countless numbers of people around the world. We hope that this conference can serve as an initial building-block to doing all that.