The transitional government of Bangladesh is working to arrange the next general election by December this year, a senior leader of a major political party said Monday.
As per an Anadolu report, a delegation from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by its secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, met in the capital Dhaka with the head of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, expressing the consensus among political parties for holding the polls as early as possible.
“The transitional government has assured us of arranging the election very soon. The chief adviser (Yunus) and others present at the meeting (from the government side) said they are working to hold the election by December this year,” Alamgir told reporters after the meeting.
He said he believes that a roadmap will be presented by the government soon.
“What we have been saying repeatedly is that this government is a transitional government, so we have once again urged them to hold early elections,” Alamgir said, adding they spoke about holding early polls after completing minimum reforms.
But the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, which led the uprising that ended the 15-year-rule of Sheikh Hasina, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, in August last year, has insisted on the implementation of major reforms, saying Hasina’s rule completely “politicised” them and reforms are necessary for closing the path for the emergence of a possible fascist regime in the future.
The Yunus-led government has formed six separate commissions to carry out reforms in six sectors, including the constitution, the electoral system, the judiciary, the anti-corruption system, public administration and police administration.
The commissions have already submitted reports with recommendations.
Law Advisor Asif Nazrul said Saturday that they would hold meetings with political parties this month to reach a national consensus on the recommendations of the six commissions.
The BNP also demanded at the meeting that the government take stern action against those in the administration who were “friends of the fascist regime” and who looted the country’s resources. They also demanded the return of laundered money.
Yunus recently said that some $17 billion alone was taken out of the country’s banking system by oligarchs close to the dictatorship and $16 billion was siphoned off annually during the 15 years of Hasina’s rule.
The party also raised the demand for the withdrawal of false cases filed against political leaders and activists in the past 15 years, claiming that the Hasina-led government filed around six million cases that were politically motivated.
However, Hasina, who has been in exile in India since the fall of her government, has repeatedly denied the allegations.
