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Bangladesh
BNP divided over what to do now
2009-01-03
Though BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has described the December 29 election as 'stage-managed', her colleagues put the polls drubbing down to wrong strategies and waning organisational strength.
"Well, that didn't work."
"What'll we do now?"
"We could do the same thing again."
"I think we should do something different."
The party policymakers are now divided over what course of action they should take. While some favour accepting the results and playing a positive role in parliament, the others stay opposed to the idea.
Wrong strategies, waning organizational strength, divided party leaders -- is this the BNP or the Republican party?
Several mid-level leaders allege that a group of former bureaucrats who had misguided Khaleda Zia are now insisting that she take a hard-line stance.

Though most of its MPs-elect are back in the capital, the party was yet to announce officially whether to let them take oath. A number of senior leaders have however hinted that the party would join the ninth parliament.

Analysing possible reasons for the polls debacle, some BNP leaders said the grassroots fell far behind the rivals in the preparatory work due to the leadership's indecision over participation even a couple of weeks before the polls. Talking to The Daily Star, they also said controversial nominations gave a wrong signal to the people, especially when AL in most part left the leaders with dubious past out of its ticket.
Listing the guys who led the massacres against the civilians in the Independence War might have raised a hackle or two ...
The leaders pointed out that intra-party conflict over reforms was another cause of the poor showing in the election. It has weakened the organisational strength to a great extent. Ignoring the pro-reform leaders led to candidate crisis in many constituencies.

"It was a blunder to drop those ['reformists'] who have records of several wins under their belt," said a senior BNP leader who did not want to be identified speaking on the issue.

Khaleda Zia meanwhile has held a series of meetings with pro-BNP intellectuals to set the party's strategy. Almost all of them suggested playing a positive role in parliament, a source close to the chairperson told The Daily Star last night.

Some senior leaders and aides to the former prime minister however are trying to convince her to adopt a very hard line from the outset as they argued the government to come will fail to live up to its promises and start losing public support in months. "We want to see how Awami League fares in fulfilling the electoral pledges it made to the people," Khandaker Delwar told reporters yesterday.
Posted by:Fred

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