 "When will Bangladesh hold elections? Begum Zia’s party grows impatient with Yunus – Firstpost")
The political unrest in Bangladesh is not over yet. The interim government under Muhammad Yunus, which is steering the country’s destiny after weeks of violence and more than 600 deaths in the protests, has a concrete, albeit difficult, task to fulfill: holding elections for a democratically elected government.
Deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League was ousted by a youth movement within eight months of its election. Bangladesh’s next largest party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BMP) – of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who spent 10 years in prison or ostracized, and whose son and current BNP leader Tarique Rahman still lives in exile in London – is pushing for early elections, while Yunus has hinted that the polls will be postponed.
How long can the Yunus government delay holding the parliamentary elections?
Fifth transitional government since 1990
This is not the first interim government in Bangladesh since 1990, when the first such agreement was reached to conduct parliamentary elections. The agreement was intended to end the military rule of General Hussain Arshad when the rival political parties announced the 1990 Joint Declaration, which provided for an interim government to ensure free and fair elections.
The first caretaker government was formed without any legal, parliamentary or constitutional support. However, when the new government came to power, the provision was ratified by the Bangladesh Parliament in 1991. However, sharp disagreements arose between the two largest parties, the BNP and the AL, which led to a delay in passing a concrete law.
The next elections in 1996 were held under a caretaker government led by a former chief justice of Bangladesh. And the following year, the government led by Begum Khaleda Zia used its majority to push through a law for caretaker elections to be supervised by the caretaker government. Sheikh Hasina was against the idea.
The third caretaker government came into power in 2001 to hold further parliamentary elections, and the fourth was formed in 2006 at the end of the term of Begum Zia’s government. However, this became a major problem as the military-backed caretaker government exceeded its deadline of holding the elections within 90 days.
This caretaker government not only delayed the parliamentary elections and stayed in power for two years, it also made political decisions. Incidentally, BNP leaders are now pointing to the same political overreach of a caretaker government when they call for early parliamentary elections.
Why BNP is getting impatient
When Yunus took over the interim government as Bangladesh’s top adviser, he promised “free, fair and participatory elections” after the reforms were implemented.
However, he refused to give a timetable for the elections and instead stressed that he had the “mandate” to first implement “vital reforms” in the country.
The BNP, a major political group, has called on the interim government to start talks with political leaders to hold national elections within a “reasonable time”. The party has increased its pressure on Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and head of the new government.
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, general secretary of the BNP, told a Bangladeshi news channel earlier this week: “People want to vote. There should be a dialogue between political parties for the election.”
Islam claimed that the people of Bangladesh would not wait “more than three months,” citing the experience of 1996: “Probably the interim government should be given a reasonable time, but not an unreasonable time like in the past – two or three years. I don’t think they (the people) will accept that.”
The BNP appears to be wary of a repeat of the past, when the army-controlled interim government exceeded the three-month deadline and delayed the elections by about two years, a delay that had brought Sheikh Hasina back to power.
Hasina’s government pushed through a change in 2011, abolishing the caretaker system, and she remained in power until the recent youth unrest that began over a quota system in government job hiring and ultimately ousted her from office. Before that, Hasina won four consecutive parliamentary elections – none of which were under a caretaker government.
What Yunus says about the election
Bangladesh’s constitution requires parliamentary elections to be held within 90 days of a government’s fall, but Yunus has yet to give a clear timetable, more than two weeks after becoming chief adviser.
In a televised address on Sunday, Yunus said the government was preparing to hold “ideal elections,” but “the timing of the elections is a purely political decision and is not up to us.”
Yunus said: “The countrymen will decide when we leave. We came here to answer the students’ demands. They appointed us, and the people of the country supported our appointment. We will constantly remind everyone of this issue so that the question of when we should leave does not suddenly arise.”
This statement angered the BNP. Islam admitted that the Election Commission needed to be reformed, but said: “This is a vague, a completely vague statement.”
Islam stressed that Yunus should invite political parties to discuss the election plan. “He is very respected in Bangladesh and around the world. But he is not a politician. A state is run by politicians. A government is run by politicians.”
“It is true that the new government must act according to the wishes of the people. But what is the wish of the people and how should it be implemented? How do you know the people? What do people want to say? We believe that parliament is the only place where these things can be decided,” said Islam, who was imprisoned during the last national elections in January this year.
Hasina resigned on August 5 and fled to India after her appeal for help was rejected by the Bangladesh army. Deadly student protests ended with Yunus as head of the interim government, which enjoys the backing of the military, no stranger to governing the country.
