Parliamentary Polls: AL wants EC to fund campaign

The ruling Awami League is drafting a set of proposals seeking some radical reforms in the electoral laws in efforts to cap campaign spending in parliamentary polls, sources have said.

According to the draft, the Election Commission will essentially run the entire election campaign on behalf of the candidates.

If passed in parliament where the AL has absolute majority, the commission will print posters and leaflets, hang the posters as well as set up stages and hire mikes for holding of rallies by the candidates, among other things, in all the 300 constituencies.

This means, candidates will have little role in running their campaigns, other than going from door to door.

The money will come from the EC's fund, meaning from the taxpayers' pockets. 

There won't be any separate posters for candidates. Instead, each of the posters will bear the names, photos and party symbols of all the contesting candidates in the respective seats. The names will be printed in alphabetical order, AL sources told The Daily Star yesterday.

The EC will also organise projection meetings at upazila level, inviting candidates, also in alphabetical order, to address voters from the same podium.

"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is aware of the draft," said an AL leader, asking not to be named.

The AL will place its proposals to the incoming Election Commission to be formed next month, and wants the EC to re-fix the campaign expenditure ceiling in the light of its proposals. Currently, a candidate can spend a maximum of Tk 25 lakh.

The party will also propose bringing down the campaign period to “not more than 10 days” from 18 to 20 days at present.

A 10-member committee of the AL is preparing the draft. The committee is also working on the party's proposal on the formation of the new EC for placing it before President Abdul Hamid during its talks with him on January 11.

"We have some proposals for electoral reform. We will submit them to the new Election Commission," AL Presidium Member Abdur Razzaque, also a member of the committee, told this newspaper yesterday.

Many civil society personalities and organisations working for electoral reforms have long been making such recommendations to check the use of money to influence elections.

It's an open secret that many candidates spend huge amounts in polls campaign. 

The use of unaccounted money in elections creates the ground for corruption, as the MPs try to recover the money after taking office, experts say.

The issue had also been discussed during the electoral law reform talks organised by the ATM Shamsul Huda-led EC in 2011.

"It sounds great. We have earlier proposed bringing similar reforms in the electoral system to put a cap on campaign cost," said M Hafizuddin Khan, president of SHUJON, a civil society platform.

But campaign is not the only source of expenditure, he pointed out, adding that a hefty sum was used to buy votes.

"There must be a mechanism to investigate alleged uses of unaccounted money so that no one dares to influence elections by using black money," said Hafizuddin, also former adviser to a caretaker government.

In the past, many candidates reportedly used unaccounted money to win, but the EC never investigated the allegations, he said.

Appreciating the draft, former Election Commissioner Brig (retd) Sakhawat Hussein said they discussed such proposals during his time at the EC. Also, some small political parties placed similar proposals during talks with the commission in 2011.

"We gave some proposals on campaign expenditure in the light of those proposals," he said.

"The Awami League's proposal is good, but its implementation depends on the capacity of the Election Commission. Besides, if such a law is made, the commission will have to strengthen monitoring to check overspending by candidates during campaigns," said Sakhawat.

Contacted, Transparency International Bangladesh Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said, "These are good ideas and deserve serious consideration, though such measures will clearly add to the taxpayers' burden.

“In an atmosphere of deficit of trust in the electoral process, adoption of such measures should be preceded by wider public consultation on whether people are ready for it.”

He also noted that campaign spending is only the tip of the iceberg when compared with the sums that change hands to “buy nominations” as well as to “buy votes”.

"Ways to control these are more important to ensure level playing field, and hence deserve much greater attention than ever before rather than simply shifting part of the election expenses to the already overburdened common people," he said.