...aka Jatiya Front; a political party established by Bangladictator Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1986 to lend a veneer of respectability to his rule. Since nobody was amused he was forced to resign by popular demand in 1990. The party remains in existence with about a dozen seats in Bangla's parliament...
pulling out of the election race continued yesterday, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
and top Awami League leaders trying to persuade Ershad to change his decision and stop JP ministers from resigning from the polls-time cabinet.
Two ministers and a state minister of the JP met Hasina yesterday at the Prime Minister's Office, but did not submit their resignations to her as directed by Ershad.
They are Rawshan Ershad, health minister, Ruhul Amin Hawlader, civil aviation and tourism minister, and Mujibul Haque Chunnu, state minister for youth and sports.
When the trio told the PM that they had gone there to tender their resignations, Hasina said she had nothing to do with that as the president was out of the country.
As Hasina sought to know the reasons for their intent to resign, they raised three issues -- withdrawing the Maj Gen Manzoor murder case against Ershad, handing over the ownership of the controversial Janata Tower to Ershad and shifting the polls date.
Over the first two issues, the PM said she would look into those matters but added that she could not do anything about the election date. She advised them to talk to the Election Commission on the matter, two JP sources who met the PM told The Daily Star.
They also claimed that the PM told them that her party AL would not object if the EC changed the polls date.
However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them...
this newspaper could not verify these claims from the PMO.
The JP ministers talked to the prime minister for more than an hour and raised different issues for immediate settlement to keep Ershad in the election race.
According to the sources, Hasina told them that the election would be held in time whether or not the JP participated in it. The election is not going to be participated by all the parties any way, as the BNP is not taking part in it. So it will not matter much if the JP too boycotts the election.
The PM said her party wanted a continuation of the constitutional process through a holding of the election. She then went on to ask the JP ministers if they wanted to see the rise of militancy in the country, added the sources on condition of anonymity.
From the PMO the trio went straight to Ershad's President Park residence at Baridhara and informed him about the outcome of the meeting.
After they left, Hasina sat in a meeting with her adviser Ziauddin Bablu and water resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud -- both JP presidium members.