From monopoly to competition: Party politics in the Bangladesh parliament (1973-2001)

Parties are pervasive; they are found in all types of parliament: large or small, old or new. The parliament of Bangladesh, the Jatiya Sangsad (JS), is no exception. Since its inception the JS has been dominated by-parties, although the nature of such domination has varied over the years. In the early years of independence the JS was monopolized by a single party, but today it has evolved into a competitive institution. In particular, the decade of the 1990s was characterized by strong inter-party competition in the JS (and also outside of it). The significance of the JS being dominated by a single party, and the recent trend toward the evolution of a strong two-party system, has not yet been examined in any systematic manner. This paper intends to fill that void. It explores the factors that accounted for the growth and subsequent decline of a one-party-dominated parliamentary system in Bangladesh and examines the reasons that have contributed to the emergence of a competitive system in recent years. The implications of this change for parliamentary (in) activity, especially for passing legislation and controlling government behaviour, are examined in the paper. The paper specifically examines the behaviour of the first, fifth and seventh parliaments, all of which were patterned after the Westminster model but differed significantly in partisan composition. The general argument is that if the monopolization of the first parliament (1973-75) by a single party led to its marginalization in the policy process, strong competition between different parties in the more recent parliaments-the fifth parliament (199195) and the seventh parliament (1996-2001)-did not make them more significant policy contributors. In fact, greater inter-party competition, notwithstanding some positive effects, has often caused immobility in parliamentary politics, and has paradoxically led to the decline of parliament. The paper explores the factors that have caused crises in Bangladeshi parliamentary politics and examines the ways in which party politics in parliament might be made more responsible as well as more responsive.