The Westminster model of government, inherited from British colonial rule, has long been promoted as one of the most democratic political systems in the world. However, in many South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, the practical reality has exposed serious structural weaknesses within this system. Instead of ensuring effective public representation, accountability, and good governance, the Westminster-style parliamentary structure has increasingly become a barrier to institutional development, administrative efficiency, and sustainable national progress.
In comparison to the United Kingdom, political and governance realities in South Asia are completely divergent. Historically, the Westminster system was a product of decades of evolution of strong institutions, maturity, the rule of law and democratic tradition. Whereas in the current state, the system remains undermined due to immature political institutions, polarisation, bureaucracy domination, corruption, and power centralisation. In these settings, the system is likely to collapse and only lead to a prolonged governance problem.
Another serious flaw in the system is its overlapping legislative and executive branches. In the Westminster system, the elected members of parliament assume the office of ministers and gain direct administrative control. Herein, those elected to hold the government accountable for their actions become members of the government.
This situation becomes even more dangerous in countries where democratic institutions are already fragile. In Bangladesh, political power is often highly centralised around a small leadership structure. Once a party wins a parliamentary majority, it effectively gains control over the legislature, executive administration, and, in many cases, indirect influence over state institutions. Under such circumstances, the Westminster model enables excessive concentration of authority rather than balanced democratic governance. Another major concern is the process of appointing ministers. In many South Asian countries, ministers are selected primarily based on political loyalty, electoral influence, or factional considerations rather than administrative competence, academic qualification, or professional expertise. As a result, individuals with little understanding of economics, administration, diplomacy, technology, public health, or national security are frequently appointed to oversee critical ministries.
This results in an ironic absurdity of governance itself. A country may have world-acclaimed economists, engineers, scientists, technocrats, defence specialists, health care experts, and educational experts. These experts still get out of executive decision-making only because they have not been directly elected political representatives. On the other hand, many MPs have poor management expertise and are assigned to administer national sectors, which are extremely complex and diverse. These structures automatically compromise the quality of policies and implementation efficiency, leading to policy contradictions, mismanagement of national projects, corruption, administrative delay, loss of long-term strategic planning and administrative laxity in national building. It reflects that the governments shift priority at their whims and fancy for political reasons, without any continuity of institutional mechanisms, a lot of national resources get misused by unskillful allocation and mismanagement.
Moreover, this system strengthens bureaucratic dependency. Many ministers lack sufficient administrative expertise and therefore become heavily dependent on senior bureaucrats for decision-making. In reality, unelected bureaucratic structures gradually gain significant control over governance. Ministers often become politically symbolic figures while real administrative influence shifts toward permanent state officials. This creates an unhealthy imbalance between elected representatives and the civil administration.
Political corruption in emerging democracies also appears to be fostered by the Westminster system. Ministerial appointments often become a vehicle to reward friends, solidify political friendships, or exert political power and influence. Political actors may come to see the executive not as a vehicle for public service, but as a means to enhance personal power bases, further strengthen the patron network and increase individual power.
A critical shortcoming is that the Westminster model is unable to adequately reflect the public interests in countries with mixed societies, such as Bangladesh, where large populations are concentrated in limited areas. Instead, people elect local representatives, who are generally more answerable to the respective parties’ top hierarchy than to the electorate. Therefore, the ordinary citizens’ interests are often drowned in central decision-making. This has developed an ‘imperfect democracy’ where a divide exists between the government and the citizens. South Asia’s governance crisis cannot, however, be remedied by the change of governments or the replacement of some leader or another. This requires systemic reform within the existing framework of the Westminster Reformgovernments, for the same trend of inefficient, unstable, corrupt, and poor governance will go on under different leaders of different political parties.
We need to transform our form of government and transition gradually from a Westminster-style to a more progressive, modern form of government. Under that form, a minister will not always be elected but can be chosen from those best educated, skilled, experienced, and competent from a pool of qualified, experienced, technically adept and professionally qualified personnel, vetted through an appropriate scrutiny mechanism. Modern administration requires deep knowledge, vision, strategic competence, and technical competence. Thus, ministers should ideally be headed by the most capable people in their respective fields, who should not necessarily have elected political experience but professional experience and expertise.
At the same time, democratic accountability must remain strong and effective. Although ministers may come from outside Parliament, they should remain fully accountable to the elected parliamentary representatives. Parliament members should regularly question ministers regarding their policies, activities, expenditures, and administrative performance to ensure transparency, accountability, and proper governance. Such a balanced system could reduce excessive political influence over administration, strengthen institutional professionalism, limit corruption, and improve long-term national planning. Most importantly, it would create an environment where governance is based on competence and public interest rather than purely political considerations.
A modern governance system for Bangladesh should therefore create greater opportunities for technocrats, policy experts, economists, experienced administrators, and professionals to participate in executive leadership roles. Independent institutions, strong local government systems, judicial neutrality, and constitutional balance must also be strengthened to reduce excessive political centralisation. At the same time, political reform must encourage meritocracy, transparency, and institutional professionalism. Democracy should not simply mean periodic elections; it must ensure effective governance, public accountability, institutional stability, and protection of national interests. A dysfunctional democratic structure that fails to deliver justice, efficiency, and development ultimately weakens public trust in the state itself.
No political parties, leaders or bureaucratic packs own the state; it is the state of the people. And as such, it is expected to be managed in the best interests of the people, rather than the short-term interests of any political party leadership or cliques of politicians. Bangladesh as a political entity may only have the possibility of transforming into a resilient, resourceful and properly run entity if systemic reforms of the Westminster model are considered by all concerned with due consideration and earnest will.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author
The writer is a columnist and political analyst
