PM: no fresh polls until violence ends
Print Edition
A day after rolling to victory in an election boycotted by the main opposition and plagued by unrest, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held to her stance that fresh polls could be called only if her rivals put a halt to violence.
With the opposition having called a 48-hour strike and seven people killed in clashes yesterday, the crisis showed no sign of easing, risking further unrest and damage to the US$22 billion garment industry that accounts for 80 percent of exports.
Hasina’s Awami League ended with more than two-thirds of seats in a contest shunned by international observers as flawed and derided as a farce by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Fewer than half the seats contested.
“An election can happen any time when BNP comes for a dialogue, but they must stop violence,” Hasina, 64, said.
Many BNP leaders are in jail or in hiding, and party chief Begum Khaleda Zia says she is under virtual house arrest, which the government denies.
“She (Hasina) has not given any hope or suggested any practical options for addressing the serious political stalemate that is affecting the country,” said Osman Farruk, a former education minister and an adviser to Khaleda.
Hasina and Khaleda, 68, have alternated as prime minister for all but two of the past 22 years. They are bitter rivals.
Ataur Rahman, a professor of political science at Dhaka University, said the standoff imperils the momentum of five years of robust growth in the impoverished nation of 160 million.
The economy grew six percent in the fiscal year that ended in June, and multilateral agencies expect growth of 5.5 to 5.8 percent in the current year.
“The longer the impasse, the longer Bangladesh suffers,” Rahman said. “And unfortunately everyone understands this other than our two top leaders.”
Official figures were not available 24 hours after polls had closed, but a monitoring group put turnout at 30 percent.
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