March 02, 2007	Friday	Safar 12, 1428

DHAKA: With their eternal squabbling and pitched street battles, Bangladesh’s two main political parties have not only scuttled national elections set for Jan 22 but also created a situation where a state of emergency may continue indefinitely.

The head of the interim government Fakhruddin Ahmed said on Tuesday that it was not possible to indicate a specific timeframe for elections as reforms were now underway, a prerequisite for holding free, fair and credible polls. Ahmed, a former World Bank official, made the comment while meeting civil society representatives in the port city of Chittagong.

A state of emergency was declared on Jan 11 by President Iajuddin Ahmed amidst raging feuds between the two main alliances one led by the Awami League and the other by the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP). An interim government was installed the next day.

Now, the Awami League and the BNP that are led by two former prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Begum Khaleda Zia respectively, are setting aside their fractiousness to demand quick polls and the immediate announcement of a timeframe leading to it.

But the interim government has undertaken, as a priority, a mission to rid politics in impoverished Bangladesh of corruption.

The Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Bangladesh as the most corrupt country for four consecutive years until 2004 and in 2006 moved it to third place along with Congo, Sudan and Chad.

The Fakhruddin Ahmed regime refuses to be hurried on its stated mission of handing over power only to a political government elected through a free and fair election. In this it has the support of several former cabinet members who say they prefer the polls to be held only after corrupt people are brought to justice and electoral reforms completed.

“Nobody knows when the elections will be held,” political analyst Prof. Ataur Rahman, who teaches political science at Dhaka University, told in an interview.

“Bitter political rivalries and mistrust led the nation to the present situation,” he said. “The present government has taken on a big task and I don’t think there will be any elections until its agenda is completed.”

“This is not a caretaker government as described in the constitution for conducting a general election; it’s an emergency regimeà it’s always dangerous... it has no timeframe and it can stay as long as it wants... their operation is not bound by the constitution,” the professor said.

“The emergency regime can tighten its grip furtherà it may even have an expanded agenda.” To show that it means business, the interim government has tightened emergency powers with provisions barring the corrupt from taking part in any polls.

This followed a crackdown on corrupt politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats many of whom are now languishing in jail.

The interim government has also announced that it would ratify the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) which would allow Bangladesh to benefit from a comprehensive international cooperation framework for mutual law enforcement assistance, especially in extradition and investigations.

The people largely blame the two lady former prime ministers for the present situation in which political unrest claimed nearly 50 lives in the two months before emergency was declared.

They have taken turns to run the country after the fall of the military dictatorship of Lt. Gen. H.M. Ershad in 1991 and restoration of democracy.

Among those who support the idea of cleansing politics before polls are announced is Muhammad Yunus, who claimed the Nobel peace prize for 2006. Yunus, called the ‘banker to the poor’ for his hugely successful micro-credit programmes announced last week the formation of a new political party Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power) as an alternative to the Awami League and the BNP.

Support has also come from the country’s army chief Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed who has repeatedly said corrupt elements in politics will not be spared if allegations against them are proved.

As the army-led security forces launched the drive against corruption, at least a dozen former ministers and over a dozen legislators from both the main political parties were detained without warrants of arrest.

The government has also asked the National Board of Revenue to prepare profiles of over 100 former lawmakers or businessmen having links with political parties to determine whether their living standards matched their declared incomes.

Police statistics show that the army-led joint forces have rounded up over 60,000 people across the country so far on various grounds.

Many other ‘corrupt’ politicians and businessmen have reportedly gone into hiding to avert arrest as the forces continued drives against hoarders, profiteers and criminals across the country.

Odhikar, a rights group, said in a report that at least 29 people were killed by law enforcement agencies and 52,027 people arrested during the first 30 days of emergency.

A sizeable number of mid- and lower mid-level leaders of the two parties have been staying away from their homes to escape raids.

“The crude power struggle -- power struggle devoid of democratic ideology and without a set of civilised rules of the game -- between the two rival political camps pushed the country to an abnormal political situation inviting a state of emergency,” wrote Nurul Kabir, editor of the leading English language daily ‘New Age’, marking one month of the emergency regime.

“That the nation badly needs democratic reforms in politics and economy is unquestionable. But with the anti-poor political economy that the apparently apolitical government of Fakhruddin Ahmed is pursuing, the people are left with no option but to keep their fingers crossed as regards a democratic outcome of its proposed political and economic reforms,” he wrote in the front page commentary on Feb 11.—Dawn/The IPS News Service