Bangladesh heading towards political uncertainty

Bangladesh is heading towards a political uncertainty as both the ruling and the main opposition parties could not reach a consensus on electoral reforms.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's four-party alliance government will end its term on Friday and will hand over power to a caretaker administration on Saturday to hold the national elections within three month.

The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Zia and the main opposition Awami League (AL) led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina held a series of talks at the level of general secretaries to workout a resolution on the electoral reforms AL is wanting, but their talks broke down Wednesday.

The AL suggests KM Hasan who will head the caretaker government be replaced as he was once a BNP official and Chief Election Commissioner MA Aziz, who made himself controversial at the time of updating voters list, be removed, fearing the elections could not be clean under the two people.

But the BNP agreed to remove Aziz, but was uncompromising to let any concession about Hasan.

BNP Secretary General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who was representing the government side in the reforms talks with his counterpart in AL Abdul Jalil, said after the talks on Wednesday, "Talks only could continue if AL agrees to keep Hasan as chief of caretaker government, otherwise it is meaningless to keep the talks going. We will not let any concession about Hasan."

Jalil Said, "Still there was time to hold the talks to resolve the disputes. But we will stick to our stand about Hasan since he was a BNP official. A party official cannot be the chief of non- partisan caretaker government and under him the elections will never be clean."

Bangladesh's constitution stipulates that the immediate past chief justice will be the chief of the caretaker government to hold the national elections in three month's time and in line with the constitutions, Hasan is scheduled to be the chief of the caretaker administration.

Hasan, while acting as a Supreme Court judge also made himself controversially feeling embarrassed in hearing the murder case of Bangladesh's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also Hasina's father.

The AL has announced on Thursday a country-wide indefinite siege from Oct. 28, the day the BNP government will handover power to caretaker government chief Hasan.

"We will isolate the capital Dhaka from rest of the country. We have asked the mayor of Chittagong to block the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway so that no import and export goods can move," Jalil said.

Chittagong Port is the largest port of Bangladesh which handles about 80 percent of the country's export and import trade.

Jalil also said he has asked the northeastern Sylhet mayor to block the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway. He said the AL-led 14-party combine leaders and activists will block all the highways from all districts and sub-districts levels towards Dhaka.

Jalil also made a fervent call to Justice Hasan not to head the caretaker government for the sake of the country and the democracy as well.

But there was no words from Hasan himself and from his family members yet.

Meanwhile, over 100 leaders, state ministers and lawmakers from BNP defected to a new political party, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which was launched Thursday and led by two former old leaders of BNP. The leaders are Prof. Dr, Badruddoza Chowdhury, former president of Bangladesh and founding secretary general of BNP and former Minister and a founding member of BNP Col. (ret) Oli Ahmed.

The LDP leaders at the party floating meeting said more BNP leaders and ministers will join the new party.

There is a possibility of confrontation between BNP and AL as both the parties have called showdowns Saturday at the same venue in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, Dhaka Metropolitan Police has imposed a ban on the meetings at the Paltan Maidan, the meeting venue of AL and BNP, and asked people not to carry any oars, and sticks in the capital from Friday midnight.

Jalil said, "We will hold our planned meeting at the Paltan Maidan as scheduled. We will not obey the police ban issued under the BNP government."

But Mnannan Bhuiyan said, "We will not hold any meeting at the Paltan Maidan on Saturday. Our meeting will be held in front of BNP office at Naya (New) Paltan."

Source: Xinhua