Faruque Ahmed
Setting aside the pleas from domestic circles and international community including the call by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last month, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made her unilateral decision to hold the next parliamentary election under her party government.
She made the final choice last week while giving the announcement that the election to the next Parliament will be held any time between October 24 and January 24 next. With such unilateral move without working out a consensus with the opposition, the Prime Minister is poised to plunge the country to a bloody confrontation.
The confrontation appears to be inevitable since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she will remain in power as head of the poll-time ‘transitional government’ and her cabinet will also continue. She will not also dissolve the Parliament as she had earlier said it will become defunct from October 24 as per the provision of the amended constitution. Now she claims it will continue till January 24. It looks like she is keeping alive all institutional protections while working out moves to the next government.
Sheikh Hasina said last week that she is determined to hold the polls under her government and it means she will not budge a ‘hair length’ distance as she made it clear in the previous week throwing the challenge to the BNP-led opposition to face the ruling party in the political field.
Her unilateral decision has ignored the BNP-led 18-party alliance demand for a caretaker government or such other poll-time transitional government without Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet in power.
Awami League is bent upon holding the polls under Sheikh Hasina to win a ‘stage managed’ election, said BNP leaders as they remain diametrically opposed to the government move; and on top of it, they said they would resist any such polls. The fear of a long drawn political battle and bloody street agitation is thus closing in while both the camps are taking the final preparation to face each other in the streets.
PM’s retraction from previous stance
People are panicked but it appears that the government is set to destabilize the country by ignoring the basic views of the opposition and their demand for a free and fair election.
The Prime Minister had earlier stated, cabinet would be dissolved and parliament would become defunct. She said she would run a transitional government with a group of advisers. Her retraction from the earlier stance has now made the crisis further critical to indicate that she is only waiting to give new electoral stamp to her old cabinet and outgoing Parliament.
Because the opposition held the view that if the cabinet members contest election from power and Parliament members run for re-election accordingly using the support of bureaucracy and all state apparatus, it may be anything but a free and fair election.
Election Commission
The fear gets further credence in the light of the subservient stance of the Election Commission which takes every move to appease the government. The opposition fear that it will not get the plane even field and their candidates will be effectively defeated by the ruling party men.
So BNP and the 18-party led opposition will not take part in the polls. Jatiya Party chairman H M Ershad has also said his party will not take part in the polls if other parties do not participate. He said last week that his party is no longer an ally to any other party and will not let others to use it to go to power. Meanwhile, the government has taken a move to disfranchise Jamaat leaders blaming them as war criminals.
The civil society leaders have meanwhile become vocal criticising the Prime Minister’s move to hold unilateral election without meeting the demand for a poll-time caretaker government, whatever it may be called.
Sheikh Hasina came heavily on them last week at a meeting of the party grassroots leaders saying they are opposing the government from their desire to get the taste of power under an undemocratic government.
She said, they are always out to install an unelected government. They are people who have failed to form political parties and have never won elections and do not have the courage to seek votes. This is why they have always wanted this type of government to get some benefits, she said.
What is going to happen
But what is now going to happen in the unfolding situation? BNP leaders said they have no option but to wage a decisive movement to unseat the government. In the first place, they will take part in the polls, if the Prime Minister resigns with her cabinet and agrees to the oppositions demand for a poll-time neutral government. If not, BNP-Jamaat members of Parliament will resign from Parliament to force the government to hold election within 90 days as per the provision of the constitution.
Political observers fear that the stalemate may arise when the opposition will not step into the trap to join polls under the transitional government led by Sheikh Hasina. As they will not join, Hasina may go for unilateral election, this may be one scenario.
In another scenario, she may keep the election hanging to continue her party in power. It may be exactly like the 1/11 caretaker government which continued two years in power under different pretext. It may be a unique way for Sheikh Hasina to continue in power and this is why she is loathe to the caretaker government.
BNP leaders said, they will resign to force the government to hold election within 90 days but some lawyers say the ploy may be defeated by Speaker who may delay in accepting the resignation. Another case may be that the government may go to court to seek an injunction on mass resignation and it may easily get it.
Street agitation, shut down and bloody confrontation may spread throughout the country and there is a growing fear that the country may drift towards a civil war-like situation. We have seen it on October 26, 2006 at Purana Paltan intersection when Awami League cadres killed 6 Jamaat workers in a bloody battle. It may be widespread this time, observers fear.
Source: Weekly Holiday