The United States would like to see a free and fair election in Bangladesh with all parties taking part, visiting Congressman Steve Chabot has said.
He also expressed the hope that bilateral relations between the US and Bangladesh would grow stronger.
Chabot, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office on Wednesday.
The US leader arrived in capital Dhaka on a two-day visit on Tuesday.
Hasina gave Chabot an idea of the fairness of elections held under her government, saying that many ruling party-backed contestants had lost in about 5,500 multi-level polls, her press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told the press.
The fairness of the polls held under her government was beyond a shred of doubt, she told the Congressman.
Hasina cited zero-casualty polls to stress her government’s even-handed electoral management, contrasting it with over 200 deaths in various elections under the BNP-led four-party alliance regime.
She referred to her telephonic conversation with the Leader of the Opposition, Khaleda Zia, inviting her to a dialogue, a conciliatory gesture the latter unceremoniously spurned.
Hasina said the Election Commission functioned independently without the government breathing down in it.
She also stressed her government’s determination to keep terrorism at bay and ensure peace in the region.
She alleged the BNP government earlier had done little to curb the spread of terrorism.
Her government, the PM said, was working tirelessly to improve people’s lives, adding that the judiciary was free of executive meddling.
Chabot is in Bangladesh at a time when the country is experiencing volatile politics marked by prolonged and violent opposition strikes for a neutral caretaker government to oversee the 10th parliamentary election.
The ruling Awami League, headed by Hasina, is strongly against letting unelected people hold poll-time reigns, favouring an all-party, interim Cabinet to be in charge at the time of the election.
Chabot is in Bangladesh when US Ambassador Dan Mozena is away home.
Mozena has been active in meeting rival leaders, apparently to mediate a solution.
But Chabot said the US would not tell Bangladesh what to do in the current political situation.
Source: Bd news24
