পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/১২২

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বিতীয় খন্ড with checks and balances, it is possible to make suitable provisions in the constitution to avoid deadlocks as far as possible. 51. It was also stated by the parliamentarians that the presidential form has greater propensities for deteriorating into dictatorship. As the President under that form is not removable except by impeachment before his term of office expires, it is said that there are greater chances of his becoming a dictator than under the parliamentary form which affords facilities for a quiet change of government. Under either system, the President can be removed only by impeachment and he has to have control of the armed forces. If, therefore, he wants to play the role a dictator, completely disregarding the will of the legislature as well as the public opinion in the country, he must have the support of the armed forces, and if once he is able to secure that support, he can become a dictator whether the form of government is parliamentary or presidential. As a matter of fact, the civil government was dismissed, and the present regime installed, by the President of a parliamentary form of government; and the acts of interference, alleged against the former President and his predecessor as being dictatorial, were also performed under the parliamentary form. 52. As already stated, the parliamentarians, while opposing the presidential system, referred to the Latin American Republics in support of their contention that the presidential form can easily deteriorate into a dictatorship, but the conditions in those countries are entirely different from ours. Lord Bryce, in his "Modern Democracies", while dealing with these Republics observes as follows: "The inhabitants of these Spanish colonies began their career as independent Slates without political training or experience. There had been no national and very few local institutions through which they could have learnt how to manage their own affairs, Spain had not given them, as England had given to her North American colonies, any town meetings, any municipal council any church organizations in which the laity bore a part. Associative bonds to linkmen together did not exist, except the control of the serf by his master. There were regions in which society, hardly advanced from what it had been in mediaeval Europe, did not possess even tribal communities much less any feudal organizations, such as those out of which European kingdoms developed. There was, in fact, no basis whatever for common political action the brand new constitutions which a few of the best-educated colonial leaders had drafted on the model of the United States Constitution did not correspond to anything real in the circumstances of these new so-called republican States. The long guerilla warfare, in the course of which the insurgent colonists had worn out the resources of Spain till she gave up the contest in despair, had implanted in all these countries military habits, had made the soldier the leader, had accustomed the inhabitants to the rule of force. No one thought of obeying the law, for there was no law except on paper. Force and force only counted. The constitutions had provided elected presidents and elected legislatures, and courts of law, but what were such institutions without the " Vol. I, pp. 211-212.