DHAKA: Army-backed authorities in Bangladesh opened crucial talks on Wednesday with major political parties aimed at steering the country down the path from emergency rule to democracy, officials said.

The negotiations centre around efforts to revamp voter lists and ensure there is no repeat of the crisis earlier this year when elections were cancelled due to allegations of vote-rigging, paralysing the country.

“In all, in the next three months, the commission will hold meetings with 15 major parties,” election commissioner Sakhawat Hossain said, adding that Wednesday’s meeting was with an Islamist party.

Bangladesh’s interim government has promised that its reform programme should lead to the staging of new polls before the end of 2008.

“The talks are part of the road map to democracy,” Hossain said, adding the commission would also discuss reforms including party funding, a code of conduct and the eligibility of candidates.

Hossain said the country’s two main parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Awami League, have also been invited for talks.

A so-called “reformist” faction of the BNP — opposed to jailed party leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia — and the Awami League, which is led by another jailed ex-premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed, have agreed to take part.

But the faction led by Zia’s loyalists has not yet decided whether it will take part, Zia’s aide A.S.M. Hannan Shah said.

Zia and Sheikh Hasina, who held power alternately from 1991 to 2006, have been accused by authorities of blatant corruption and pushing Bangladesh’s fragile democracy to the brink of collapse. Both are facing corruption charges.

The interim government came to power on Jan 11 after months of violent protests by opposition parties over alleged vote-rigging by the BNP, leading the president to cancel planned national polls and impose a state of emergency.

Earlier this week interim government chief Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former central bank head, lifted a ban on indoor political meetings as part of a new push to restore democracy.

The election commission, which has been reconstituted as part of the army-backed government’s pledge to stamp out electoral fraud, has already prepared draft reforms.

Under the proposed reforms, candidates of political parties who have defaulted on loans, utility or tax payments would be barred from standing for public office.

The parties will have to give full disclosure of their funding and expenditure and be asked to cut off any links with student groups.

“All the reform proposals would be on the table. But we may or may not take their opinion on the issues. The final decision lies with the commission,” Hossain said.

The talks opened as New York-based Human Rights Watch said the government’s easing of the ban on indoor politics was “not nearly enough to address widespread restrictions on basic freedoms and rampant human rights abuses”.

“The idea that politics is banned in a democracy is bizarre. If the Bangladeshi authorities are serious about restoring democracy, they must fully end the ban on political activities,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

“Politics is not a sport that can be played only in an indoor arena.”—AFP