Bangladesh transport blockade starts taking hold

BANGLADESH: A transport blockade aimed at forcing controversial election officials to step down or be removed began taking hold across Bangladesh early on Monday, just days after the previous blockade caused havoc.

Witnesses said hundreds of activists of a 14-party alliance led by Sheikh Hasina, chief of Awami League, squatted on highways linking the capital Dhaka with the main port in Chittagong city and other main towns.

Police and the elite Rapid Action Battalion watched the chanting protesters but did not try to disperse them, the witnesses said. Meanwhile president Iajuddin Ahmed, head of a non-party interim government in place to hold fair elections in January, met Sheikh Hasina Wajed Sunday evening but the two sides were unable to agree on the fate of chief election commissioner M.A. Aziz.

The opposition and its allies accuse Aziz of seeking to rig January polls in favour of the outgoing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led government. "We told the president that he failed to prove that he is neutral," said Obaidul Kader, a senior Awami League leader.

"We had set Sunday evening as the deadline to remove the chief election commissioner and his deputies. But he failed. The deadline has passed and we will now resume our nationwide blockade Monday morning," he added.

At least eight people were injured, two of them seriously, when five small bombs were detonated during clashes between supporters of the two parties, said police and witnesses.

The president has offered to appoint two new commissioners in line with the opposition's demand, but an opposition spokesman said it would only accept the offer if they replaced the election chief and one of his deputies.

The president has said he will reveal a package of measures aimed at ending the deadlock in a televised address in the next few days.

DHAKA, Monday, Reuters, AFP