DHAKA, Nov 4: The interim government of the president and chief adviser, Iajuddin Ahmed, seems to have been caught between the conflicting demands put forward by the two major political camps, led by the BNP and the Awami League.
While the AL led camp on Oct 30 submitted to the caretaker government chief an 11-point charter of demand including reconstitution of the election commission, the BNP-led alliance on Saturday put forward a 10-point charter of demands asking him not to bow to the AL’s ‘unconstitutional’ demand for reorganising the commission.
Meanwhile, the caretaker cabinet resolved on Saturday that the ‘reorganisation of the ‘controversial’ election commission was necessary to hold a credible election in January 2007, but it was ‘yet to find any way out’ to reorganise the constitutional body, a member of the interim committee said.
Notably, a member of the committee on Friday night met Justice M A Aziz, who heads the four-man election commission, and unofficially asked him whether he would step down if the caretaker government officially requests him to do so. Justice Aziz is learnt to have expressed his reluctance to entertain such request, arguing that ‘there is no constitutional basis for the caretaker government to make such request’.
The chief election commissioner clearly pointed to the member of the interim cabinet that election commission is a constitutional body, while its members could be removed, if unwilling to resign’ either by impeachment by parliament or by way of drawing proceedings against it by the country’s Supreme Judicial Council, the cabinet sources said.
In the present case, the parliament was dissolved on Oct 27, while there is no sign yet of drawing any proceedings against the commission by the Supreme Judicial Council.
