The Nature of Influence of Political Parties on the Local Self-government Elections in Bangladesh: Some Policy Recommendations

Abstract

The idea of local government had followed the establishment of 'modern government' in different states of the world. Though the local government units were, absolutely,  the 'local agents' of the central (State) government, even than, those were a sort of achievement of the 'local people'. Through these local government units the local people, at least, attained some administrative or official facilities. The idea of 'local self-government' came later to the existence to ensure the control and participation in the 'purely local issues' by the local people. 'The local issues and activities would be administered or governed by the representatives of the local people, not by the central government,' was the basic spirit of the concept of local self-government. The local self-government units are functioning in Bangladesh, least or best, from the very inception of the country. In the recent years. the major political parties are significantly intervening in the elections of the local self-governments (LSGs). The present article has studied primarily that new dimension of LSG on Bangladesh perspective and offered some suggestions to address that new phenomenon