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| Bangladesh |
| Hasina tells party to prepare for Dec polls |
| 2008-06-13 |
| Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, released from jail on parole, left Dhaka on Thursday for the United States for medical treatment. Before her departure she asked her Awami League party to prepare for a parliamentary election due in December. She boarded a British Airways flight to London en route to the United States, officials at the airport said. Before leaving, Hasina briefly met senior leaders of her Awami League political party at the airport and asked them to remain united in her absence. “We assured her of the party’s unity,” Syed Ashraful Islam, general secretary of Awami League, told reporters. He said Hasina also asked them to prepare for December’s parliamentary election. Political analysts said Hasina’s freedom, temporary though it may be, had moved the Awami League and the military-backed government towards a “win-win situation” that would help push the political process forward. “People would now hope the government might offer a similar olive branch to Hasina’s rival Begum Khaleda Zia and release her from detention,” said Professor Ataur Rahman Khan, president of the Bangladesh Political Science Association. “The government is trying to (say) that the judicial process and politics can continue side by side, and the parties may buy it in good faith,” he told Reuters on Thursday. Special courts prosecuting Hasina for alleged corruption ruled on Monday the trials could continue in her absence, after a government-appointed medical board suggested she be sent abroad immediately. |
| Posted by:Fred |