The party of former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina demanded on Sunday an end to emergency rule and the release of its leader to ensure a fair national election, expected sometime next year. Hasina is among scores of politicians arrested in a crackdown launched by the country’s army-backed interim administration as part of its campaign against corruption. “We don’t believe that a free and fair election is possible with our leader Sheikh Hasina, chief of the country’s biggest party, behind the bars,” acting party chief Zillur Rahman said after a meeting with the election commission.
The party also sought the lifting of emergency rules imposed by the interim government after it took over in January pledging to hold parliamentary elections by the end of next year. Awami League asked the commission to bar religion-based political parties from contesting the polls and those that had acted against the countryÂ’s independence struggle in 1971. The prime target of the Awami League was the Jamaat-e-Islami party which had opposed Bangladesh independenceÂ’s from Pakistan.
The election commission will also soon invite one of the two factions of the now divided Bangladesh Nationalist party, led by another jailed ex-premier Begum Khaleda Zia, to discuss its election plans.