With the aim of boosting its popularity following a five-year rule that left many incumbency factors, the Awami League is now looking to concentrate on bettering governance standards more than ever before.
Party insiders say that it was always the aim of the AL to establish good governance in the country at any cost and shrug off the reports on their “dwindling” popularity saying that this is a normal phenomenon of a party to have its approval rate falling after ruling the country for five years.
That is why the AL, the oldest political party of the country, has been engaging its efforts to establish good governance in the country to improve its approval rating before the next general election which, the party leaders say, is still five years away.
“A democratic political party would always want to establish good governance, and Awami League being the oldest party in the country is no different. As such it is engaging its efforts to satisfy the people at any cost, for which establishing good governance is one of the tools,” AL presidium member Kazi Zafarullah told UNB over telephone.
After winning the 10th general election, he said, the new government that was formed saw a good number of ministers from the previous term (2009-13) axed. Kazi Zafarullah offers the plain reason of failure to perform their duties properly as the factor for these ministers losing their jobs.
This corroborates what AL general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam told reporters after taking oath on January 12 at Bangabhaban: “The Prime Minister relieved those who failed to perform their duties properly while they were in office.”
Zafarullah said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina deliberately refrained from choosing many heavyweight ministers for her present cabinet due to allegations existing against them, even in cases where they had run their ministries satisfactorily.
“The party chief wanted to start the new government with the clean-imaged people in her cabinet,” he said. Apart from this the Anti-Corruption Commission is playing a big role to help the government regain its popularity.
To many observers, the ACC’s recent activities showed that the government is very much determined to establish good governance in the country.
On March 18, the ACC , separate notices to former State Minister for Housing and Public Works Abdul Mannan Khan and his wife, Hasina Sultana, for submitting their wealth statements.
Earlier, in January 2013, the ACC launched probes into the allegations of unusual wealth accumulations by seven ruling party politicians, which is very much unusual in the history of this country.
The ACC also grilled the politicians, including Mannan Khan, in connection with the graft allegations.
ACC inquiry officers are conducting probes into the graft allegations against former Health Minister Dr AFM Ruhal Haque, former State Minister for Housing and Public Works Abdul Mannan Khan, former State Minister for Water Resources M Mahbubur Rahman, Enamul Haque, MP (Rajshahi-4), Abdur Rahman Bodi, MP (Ukhia-Teknaf), Aslamul Haque, MP, (Dhaka-14) and Abdul Jabbar, former MP (Satkhira-2).
Out of favour
The 20 dropped ex-ministers were: Home Minister Dr Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni, Environment and Forests Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud, Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed, minister without portfolio Suranjit Sengupta, Food Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque, Industries Minister Dilip Barua, Health Minister AFM Ruhal Haque, Primary and Mass Education Minister Afsarul Amin, Social Welfare Minister Enamul Haque Mostafa Shaheed, Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen, Labour Minister Raziuddin Ahmad Raju, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Shahara Khatun, Cultural Affairs Minister Abul Kalam Azad, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Faruk Khan, Commerce Minister GM Quader, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdul Latif Biswas, Planning Minister AK Khandaker, Land Minister Rejaul Karim Hira, and Science & ICT Minister Mostafa Faruk Mohammad.
However, AK Khandaker did not contest the 10th parliamentary polls.
The 14 dropped state ministers are Shamsul Hoque Tuku (Home Affairs), Jahangir Kabir Nanak (LGRD and Cooperatives), Mujibur Rahman Fakir (Health), Motahar Hossain (Primary and Mass Education), Abdul Mannan Khan (Housing and Public Works), Capt (retd) AB Tajul Islam (Liberation War Affairs), Enamul Haque (Energy and Power), Munnujan Sufian (Labour and Employment), Dipankar Talukdar (Chittagong Hill-Tracts Affair), Advocate Shahjahan Miah (Religious Affair), Ahad Ali Sarkar (Youth and Sports), Mahbubur Rahman (Water Resources), Omar Faruque Chowdhury (Industries) and Abdul Hye (Fisheries and Livestock).
Source: UNBConnect