Questions from CA’s address

Although there is a long list of reforms that the interim government has taken up, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has left it up to the people to decide the bare minimum that needs to be done before he can call for fresh elections.
At the same time, he pointedly said that it needed political acceptance. As for the next elections, the Nobel peace laureate said it was purely a matter of political decision.
It was his first substantive address to the nation yesterday and he touched on a host of issues. He had spoken to foreign delegates once before where he briefly mentioned some of the sectors that needed reforms. That was the first indication of what the interim government was willing to take on its plate.
He repeated them yesterday, adding a few more areas of immediate concern. Besides reforms in civil administration, justice system, election commission, law enforcement and media, Yunus mentioned reforms in finance, business and commerce, health, agriculture, and justice for offences over the last 15 years along with a few other things.
Together, the full range of reforms, all of which are much needed and quite important, will take years if not decades. And even then, there is no guarantee that the reforms will be irreversible.
While Yunus has put the ball in the people’s court regarding the reforms, it must be pointed out that there is no mechanism in place to let the government know about the people’s choices or preferences.
Surely, one way is to open dialogues with the political forces, but many might argue that they are not representative of the entire cross section of the people, especially since most of those who were given an audience were largely centre-right leaning without any significant representation of the leftist, liberal and progressive forces.
And towards that end, the interim government would do well to engage with professional bodies, trade unions, businesses, interest groups and the broader civil society to ensure that the government has indeed heard the people, and thereby understands its mandate.