LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADVISOR SEES THE POLITICAL CLOUDS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 001001 SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/PB E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/20/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR ELAB ETRD KDEM BG SUBJECT: LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADVISOR SEES THE POLITICAL CLOUDS CLEARING AND POTENTIAL FOR GREATER DECENTRALIZATION Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) Summary ======== ¶1. (C) During a September 18 meeting with the Ambassador, Local Government Advisor Anwarul Iqbal was upbeat about the local government strengthening reform process and outlined the upcoming scenarios for dialogues with the parties and potential election schedules. Advisor Iqbal, who also oversees the Ministry of Labor, expressed confidence that the country was moving in the right direction regarding child labor issues and forced labor concerns in the shrimp sector. Political Dialogue is Moving Forward ¶2. (C) The Ambassador met with Local Government Advisor Mohammed Anwarul Iqbal on September 18 to discuss the status of the government's on-going dialogue with the country's major political parties and to garner a better sense of local government strengthening and decentralization reforms being promoted by the Caretaker Government. USAID's Democracy officer sat in as the notetaker. Advisor Iqbal expressed confidence that the on-going dialogue with political parties was moving in the right direction. He pointed to the meetings planned for Saturday September 20 between the Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) and the BNP and their alliance partners. He expected that the election schedule would be announced soon and felt the country was on track to hold national elections the third week of December. Iqbal further stated that once the final dates for elections were announced that the general public and "grassroots" groups would make everyone stick to the schedule. Electoral Options ¶3. (C) When queried by the Ambassador about the timing of the proposed Upazila (i.e. sub-district) elections, the Advisor described two possible scenarios. Plan A would be to hold some Upazila elections early in November and another batch after the Parliamentary elections sometime in late-December. Plan B would be to hold the national elections as planned, probably on December 18, and then quickly hold two batches of Upazila elections right after that but before January 1, ¶2009. (Note: On September 20 the Chief Advisor announced an elections schedule based on the second scenario: Parliamentary elections will be held on December 18, while the Upazila elections will be held partly on December 24 and partly on December 28. End Note) The January 1 deadline was important, the Advisor explained, because that the BEC legally must update the electoral roll every year beginning in January and therefore could hold elections until that process was complete. Advisor Iqbal maintained that the BEC had the capacity to hold Parliamentary and Upazila elections back-to-back. Reforms Key to Greater Decentralization ¶4. (C) The Ambassador outlined USG assistance to strengthen local governance in Bangladesh and our commitment to deepen the country's incipient decentralization process. The Advisor explained the multiple levels of local government. The lowest levels of elected local governments were the Union Parishad for rural areas and municipalities for urban areas. Above them were the Upazilas, which had only once had elected leadership and have been managed by the country's MPs since the country's return to democracy in 1991. The country's five district level capitals and Dhaka as the country's national capital fell into a special category of city corporations. Finally there are appointed District level councils. Iqbal noted that each level of local government was governed by its own legislation. ¶5. (C) The Advisor stated that new legislation was already in place for city corporations and Upazilas and that an updated municipal ordinance was ready to be enacted. The changes to the Union Parishad law were under review by the Law Ministry. The Advisor felt that this fresh legal framework would increase transparency and accountability of government actions at the sub-national level. The central government resources would allocate greater resources to DHAKA 00001001 002 OF 002 these local governments. He further said that other recommendations were being reviewed, such as apportioning a percentage of the national Value Added Tax directly to local governments, to strengthen the Government's budding decentralization efforts. He appeared confident that these new local government ordinances would be ratified by the next political government. Police Reform Ordinance Stymied ¶6. (C) Noting that the Advisor was a former Inspector General (Chief) of the National Police and a career police officer, the Ambassador solicited his opinion on the proposed Police Reform Ordinance being promoted by the Caretaker Government. Advisor Iqbal felt that this ordinance would not be passed during the Caretaker's tenure as there was substantial resistance from the bureaucracy to separating the police staff from the normal civil service cadre. He discussed his years of experience as a police officer all around the country and seemed disappointed that such a reform appeared dead in the water at this point. Labor Issues Being Addressed ¶7. (C) The Advisor also oversees the Ministry of Labor and Employment as part of his portfolio. The Ambassador congratulated the Advisor on the Caretaker Government's recent relaxation of restrictions on trade union activity and asked his thoughts on the issue of child labor and other concerns that were raised under the AFL-CIO's petition to the USTR. The Advisor explained that the Government had reached out to the International Labor Organization (ILO) to tackle the worst forms of child labor and expected to be able to pull 30,000 children from hazardous labor conditions. Activities included providing micro-credit to the parents of child workers as well as training on livelihood options that would allow those families to pull their children out of work and put them into school. Advisor Iqbal expressed hope in replicating these actions for families involved in the shrimp sector. He also affirmed his belief that there was negligible forced child labor in the country. At the same time, he recognized that many families face extremely difficult economic situations that compelled them to have their underage children work instead of attend school. Comment ======= ¶8. (C) Advisor Iqbal was optimistic that fundamental local governance and decentralization reforms would survive the next government. He embodies much of the pragmatism that has characterized the Caretaker Government and seems to understand the long-term changes that are required to move Bangladesh's development forward. He is well-versed on the issues within his portfolio and, from his years as a police officer serving all around the country, he has a clear understanding of the realities and challenges facing the country's rural population. As the country becomes preoccupied with the immediate political situation and upcoming elections, the various reforms in local governance that the Caretakers have promoted could end up being one of the most important components of their legacy. Moriarty