Family Dominance on Political Parties in Bangladesh: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Bangladesh got birth on the quest of democracy where power will be vested among the people and from an elite power structure to people`s representative power transformation was the core issue of the liberation war of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the power is dominated by some family legacy leaderships or an oligarchic power structure dictates the polity at large. Political parties, the main shadow as eternal vigilance for democratic consolidation, are also governed by some ruling elite families at whole. Bangladesh Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jatiya Party (JP) are foremost parties of the mainstream political landscape. Supreme power position of party as president or chairman or chairperson is either single one for a long time or a drift to persist it from him/herself, son or siblings. This inclination creates hegemonic authoritative supremacy over the party as well as governance. The smooth democratic flow is hampered, in addition, impacted by this trend on intra-party democratic practice and governance institutionalization. In this context an academic seeking to explore the reasons, continuities and variables held in this paper. Here a primary discussion on conceptual framework then a glance overview of political parties of Bangladesh specially focused on basics of three main political parties, tried to look upon the inside democratic practice within parties as well. A sketch to glimpse the leadership making process where party chief and other exclusive power holders come through to illustrate the democratic practice within parties and correlated factors such as family identity and so on then an exertion to analyze the collected data based on mentioned respective issues. Finally, the study adds some propositions as the suggestive measurement in the form of recommendations that can be paramount for the successful democratic journey in Bangladesh.