The electoral system in Bangladesh has been called “a ritual of democracy,” but more than a ritual, it is a market economy thriving on the transaction culture that rules our politics. Elections in the country should be a contest of ideas and ideology, but in truth, they are a business proposition in which candidates buy tickets rather than earn them. As the Bangladeshis have lost patience with politics as a public service and embraced it as a business enterprise, the cost of being nominated and “secured” by the party high command, before elections are called, is in the region of 10 to 20 crore takas per parliamentary seat, and sometimes more, depending on location. This “budget” is not likely to be related to the cost of electioneering. It will include donations to the party high command, the customary informal levy/toll, some “shadow contribution”, and other expenditures that are not really designed to win trust at the grassroots but only to buy control on the streets and in the markets.

This is why the political class can have the cheek to refer to an election as a “festival.” In our democracy, the “festival” is more about over-the-top dining, indirect “payments” to workers, and hiring muscle power to “clean up” (i.e., annihilate) the competition. The expenditure on genuine campaign activities, including public meetings, is like a flea bite in comparison.

That is what Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar, the director of the Election Reform Commission, a citizens’ initiative, said. He, probably like many Bangladeshis, wondered out loud what the difference is between the political parties. He went on to say that he could not tell the difference since “I don’t believe that any party here functions or behaves or practices democratic values or transparency.” He said bluntly that politics in Bangladesh has become a business enterprise and “political parties have become syndicates.”

We may not agree with Dr Badiul Alam on everything he said, but we have to agree with him on this: that in Bangladesh today, power, profit, and political protection are inextricably bound. This nexus, not simply partisan culture, determines how candidates are picked, financed, and elected. When buying a ticket from a party becomes almost like buying into a cartel, then the election becomes an expensive formality, not an expression of democratic will.

Bangladesh’s political financing system is the source and sustenance of this larger problem. The regulatory structure is weak, reliance on informal transactions is high, and accountability remains elusive, leading to a shadow economy in election financing. Party funds, candidate contributions, and business patronage overlap and interdepend so that, in the murky space where money and power meet, the political-business nexus rules. Money dictates access, policy, and even the behavior of law enforcement agents. The result is the distortion of democratic competition through structural advantages for wealthy candidates and the direct capture of policy by businesses, which use politics to extract favors. Over the long term, the political-business nexus exacerbates inequality, with the wealth and income of the ruling class diverging from those of ordinary citizens. “Business protection” becomes a code for anti-competitive behavior, extortion, and unequal access to the state.

More importantly, the financial culture of political parties extends far beyond election time. Parties function with opaque sources of income, obscure bookkeeping, and non-transparent expenditure patterns at all times, which accounts for their unaccountability to the people of the country. Bangladesh’s major political parties have become highly dependent on businessmen for both campaign financing and day-to-day operations. Patronage has replaced ideology and, for all practical purposes, hollowed out ideological politics by replacing it with transactional loyalties and obligations. In many cases, commercial interests have replaced national interests as the defining factor of the party. This also makes it much easier for private interests to capture the policymaking process to the detriment of the public interest.

A route to transparency, even a partial one, is straightforward but needs political will, which is in short supply. If elected representatives had to submit a detailed statement of income and expenditure before elections and a revised, expanded version within one month of taking office, then scrutiny of these documents would become a reality. Publication of these statements would be a real deterrent, and empowering both ACC and EC to launch investigations would make it difficult for illicit flows to continue. Of course, such a step requires goodwill that many lack.

The country’s election laws, as they stand now, do not provide for any clearly defined fundraising channels. Bangladesh’s political parties raise money from almost everywhere they can, since the law is unclear. Regulatory reform is long overdue. But simply regulating the country’s political economy is not enough; parties must have the goodwill for real reform to take root. Bangladeshis know that political finance is opaque to an embarrassing degree. A little transparency would be transformational.

There is one glaring exception to this, which, in all fairness to Jamaat-e-Islami, one has to admit, and that is that Jamaat’s income and expenditure (IE) system is one of the most transparent of all political parties. It is, for the most part, an open book, and all internal transactions are supported by vouchers/receipts. The party is dependent on the income of its manpower. Each of its members is obligated to give 5 percent of his or her monthly income to the party’s chest. As Bangladesh Independent reporter Syed Kashem Ali points out, there are complicating factors as well. Still, one cannot help admiring the party’s relative transparency compared to the shameful opacity of the big mainstream parties.

However, transparency cannot thrive in a political set-up where power is excessively centralized. Decentralization is as important as money. Bureaucrats, secretaries, and senior officials have a significant say in politics, yet nobody asks them about their sources of income. Many are partners in the same dark-money chains that have corrupted the political parties. Unless we begin to clean up the administrative networks that allow such corruption to thrive, electoral reform will remain cosmetic. If the EC wants to reform elections, it will be unable to enforce accountability. The current legal framework is too soft to make much of an impression, and so the EC cannot hope to change the current modus operandi of political financing.

The interim government, which most of us thought would roll up its sleeves and face the challenge, failed to initiate any practical reforms. As a result, Bangladesh must face up to the political and social fallout of a broken system we let continue. Elections are no guarantee for a representative government. Bangladeshis want an election system that is transparent, accountable, and representative, not just one that continually reinforces their frustrations. As long as a shroud of darkness remains on political financing, Bangladesh will remain an expensive democracy.