Bangladesh's grand alliance announces programs to resist elections scheduled on Jan. 22

Chief of Bangladesh's grand electoral alliance Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday announced a series of programs, including blockades and hartals from Jan. 14, to force the caretaker government to cancel the planned national election on Jan. 22.

Addressing a public meeting in capital Dhaka on Wednesday, Hasina, who is also president of former opposition Awami League ( AL), said blockade will be enforced across the country on Jan. 14- 15 and Jan. 17-18 and nonstop hartal on Jan. 21-22.

She said if the caretaker government holds the one sided election on Jan. 22, nonstop hartal will continue throughout the country.

The alliance will demonstrate on Jan. 11 across the country to protest the police action on the activists and leaders of the alliance during the three-day blockade that ended on Tuesday, she said.

The AL president said, "We want election and for this we had submitted our nominations, but we withdrew nominations as we saw environment for a credible election was not created and even there was not a correct voter list."

Bangladesh introduced the caretaker government in 1996, which stipulates that a non-party caretaker government will supervise the national election within three months after it takes office.

Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed took over the post of Chief Advisor of caretaker government on Oct. 29, 2006 as five- year tenure of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led four party alliance government ran out on Oct. 27, 2006.

But AL alleged that Iajuddin is not a non-partisan man as he was chosen as president by BNP-led four party alliance government.

Hasina said no election will be free, fair and credible under Iajuddin. She demanded resignation of him, forming a neutral caretaker government as stipulated by the constitution, correcting the voter list and reconstituting the Election Commission for a clean election.

But Iajuddin Ahmed said on Sunday that he was firm to hold the general election as scheduled, otherwise there will be constitutional crisis. He said the next government after Jan. 22 election will resolve all the problems after he hands over power to it.

Source: Xinhua