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| Bangladesh |
| Bangladesh's BNP to go ahead with polls |
| 2007-01-06 |
| Bangladesh’s outgoing ruling party vowed on Friday to take part in this month’s scheduled elections, even as 20,000 opposition activists pledged to boycott what they called “farcical” polls. Khaleda Zia, the outgoing prime minister and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said her party and allies would contest the elections despite a decision by the main opposition Awami League and its coalition partners to stay away from the polls. “We have always wanted to go to polls in accordance with the constitution. It has been our only demand,” Zia told a news conference in the capital, Dhaka. “Now if a party does not take part in the elections and if that lessens the acceptability of its results, the boycotting party will be blamed for the crime, not the participating party,” Zia said. Under the constitution, Bangladesh’s interim government, which assumed power on October 28, must hold the polls within 90 days of its tenure. This means it will have to stage the elections by January 25. The government has already announced January 22 as the polling date. But the Awami League and its allies said they would boycott the poll, accusing the interim government of failing to create fair conditions. Zia made the announcement as thousands of opposition supporters marched through central Dhaka demanding the cancellation of what they said were “farcical” and “one-sided” polls. At least 20,000 opposition supporters joined the protest and marched to the city’s centre, police inspector Abdul Latif said. Similiar rallies were staged across the country, police said. “It all went off peacefully. We have enough security to prevent violence,” Latif said. The alliance of opposition parties maintains it is more important for the elections to be seen as credible, with all parties taking part, than for them to be held on time. It has demanded a string of reforms which it said were needed to ensure the polls were not tilted in favour of the outgoing BNP-led government. The coalition accused the BNP of trying to rig the elections by appointing biased officials to key positions in the election commission and the temporary administration charged with organising the polls. The BNP, however, has rejected the allegations, saying the opposition had sensed defeat and was determined to sabotage the elections. The reforms demanded by the opposition include a revision of the voters’ list, changes to judiciary and intelligence agency chiefs and the replacement of two election commissioners. |
| Posted by:Fred |