B'desh polls to go ahead depite Hasina boycott

BANGLADESH: Bangladesh will go ahead with planned parliamentary elections later this month despite a decision by a mainstream political alliance to boycott it, election officials said on Thursday.

The election is set for January 22, but the multi-party alliance led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday decided to boycott the vote, accusing the interim government charged with organising the polls of favouring her opponents.

Two other parties also announced a boycott: the Jatiya Party of former army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad and the Liberal Democratic Party of former president A.Q.M. Badruddoza Chowdhury. The immediate past prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, launched a full-scale election campaign on Thursday outside the capital Dhaka, unfazed by the boycott threat that diplomats and analysts said could plunge Bangladesh into greater uncertainty and chaos.

"We have no alternatives to holding of the elections on the due date because of constitutional bindings," an election commission official said on Thursday. The constitution stipulates that Bangladesh must have new elections within three months after Khaleda ended her five-year tenure as prime minister in late October and handed power to the interim government headed by President Iajuddin Ahmed.

Hasina and her allies said Iajuddin must resign as caretaker chief because he had failed to act neutrally or implement the electoral reforms they had asked for to make the polls free and impartial.

Hasina's Awami League and allies have called for a countrywide protest on Thursday and a two-day transport blockade from Jan. 7 to pile pressure on Iajuddin to quit.

The president showed no sign of bending, and the BNP and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami urged him to act firmly to put down attempts to foil the elections.

They warned Hasina would be held responsible if the country faced any constitutional crisis.

Dhaka, Thursday, Reuters