A disappointed US is yet to decide whether it would recognise Bangladesh’s Jan 5 election, but the State Department’s deputy spokesperson said the failure of the parties to reach a consensus the US has been calling for was clearly “not a good sign”.
“But I don’t want to prejudge the outcome or what we’ll say afterwards,” Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said at a daily press briefing in Washington on Thursday.
“As I’ve been clear, they haven’t taken steps to hold free, fair, and credible elections, so clearly that’s not a good sign,” she said when she was asked whether the US would recognise the elections in which major opposition stayed away.
BNP’s boycott over the poll-time government issue has led to more than half of the seats returning uncontested winners.
The US followed the European Union to halt its polls monitoring mission saying it was “disappointed” as parties failed to reach a consensus to hold a “free, fair and credible” elections.
Harf said they were encouraging major parties to reach a consensus and “we will keep monitoring the situation and engaging as necessary”.
The Opposition has long been observing political programmes like blockades and shutdowns, unleashing violence in which many innocent people were killed.
Police arrested several senior opposition leaders. In the latest development, the Leader of the Opposition, Khaleda Zia, was prevented from leaving her Gulshan residence during her “March for Democracy” programme to force the government defer the elections.
She has not been seen coming out of her home since Saturday, while her party leaders have been picked up by the police when they tried to go and see her, fanning speculation that she was under house arrest.
Ministers of the poll-time cabinet, however, scotched the speculation, saying Khaleda had kept herself confined at home.
However, the British High Commissioner and the US ambassador in Dhaka had gone to her home and had meetings with her in the presence of her advisers.
The deputy spokesperson, however, said they did not have any information of the Opposition Leader’s “house arrest”.
Source: Bd news24
