Bangladesh prepares for 9th Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) election on December 18 amidst confusions among the voters. The political parties are still divided on their subsequent steps, as the care taker government had decided only to relax few clauses of the emergency. Most of the political parties, during their series of discussions with the government and the election commission, however insisted that the government should take the initiative for a free and fair election in the country lifting the emergency.
Lately the Awami League, a major political party of Bangladesh, led by Sheikh Hasina decided to join the polls with the relaxed rules of emergency. However, their arch rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party made it clear that it will participate in the election only after lifting the emergency. The BNP chief Begum Khaleda Zia rather threatened that her party will join agitation if their demands including the lifting of emergency before polls were not fulfilled.
The BNP got a supporter in a Dhaka based rights body Odhikar, which also came out with the statement that the state of emergency was nothing but a state of fear and an election to restore electoral democracy cannot be held under such circumstances. Similarly, an influential English daily of Bangladesh, New Age made comments in one of its editorials that 'the state of emergency, which keeps the people's fundamental rights suspended, is antithetical to the very concept of democracy'.
Earlier, the United States and the European Union asked the Dhaka government to lift the emergency ahead of polls. The US Ambassador (to Bangladesh) James Moriarty commented that the December election 'would not be credible if the authorities kept restrictions in place'. The European Union mission head in Dhaka Stefan Frowein disclosed that they had problems with the state of emergency. The Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma also commented that 'a state of emergency is inconsistent with a normal electoral process'.
Meanwhile, the credibility of the care taker government, which has already completed 21 months, starts loosing. The tenure of the caretaker government headed by Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed had only three months, but it continues to exist till date. Initially the government received appreciation from the common people, as they got frustrated with the non-governance and political violence set on by the two major parties (BNP and AL), but slowly it witnessed eroding support base.
"This is the worst government in the history of post-independence Bangladesh. I do not believe that the caretaker government has the credibility to hold a free and fair election. Elements in the power corridor are aimed at creating a puppet parliament which can endorse the misdeeds of Dr Fakhruddin," said Anisur Rahman, a Bengali poet and journalist. Exiled in Stockholm now, Anisur also added, "The government seems bias towards the Islamist regressive political groups including Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, who opposed the Independence War of Bangladesh and whose members raped thousands Bangladeshi women in 1971."
Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique of Dhaka University, in an interview with a local daily, also came out with the statement that the 'caretaker government has failed in two years to earn people's trust that it really wants to relinquish power through an election'.
The professor of journalism Siddique added, "There is a perception among people that the election cannot be acceptable if any of the two largest parties stays out of it." He also accused the government for not 'giving autonomy to Bangladesh Betar (radio) and Bangladesh Television', where as it engaged in rigorous political and economic reforms in the country.
null
|
|
Comments:
