Bangladesh’s interim authorities, put in after final 12 months’s mass rebellion, warned Saturday that nationwide unity is essential to “prevent the return of authoritarianism.”
Since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by student-led protests in August 2024 – ending her 15-year iron-fisted rule – the South Asian nation of 170 million has confronted ongoing political turmoil.
Following every week of road protests by rival events within the capital, Dhaka, the federal government led by Muhammad Yunus cautioned that energy struggles threaten latest progress and urged the general public to completely assist its efforts.
“Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability, organize free and fair elections, justice, and reform, and permanently prevent the return of authoritarianism in the country,” it stated in an announcement.
‘Continuously obstructing’
Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who returned from exile on the behest of protesters final 12 months, stated he has an obligation to implement democratic reforms earlier than elections, due by June 2026 on the newest.
However, the federal government warned it had confronted “unreasonable demands, deliberately provocative and jurisdictionally overreaching statements,” which it stated had been “continuously obstructing” its work.
Sources in his workplace and a key political ally stated Thursday that microfinance pioneer Yunus had threatened to stop.
“If the government’s autonomy, reform efforts, justice process, fair election plan, and normal operations are obstructed to the point of making its duties unmanageable, it will, with the people, take the necessary steps,” Saturday’s assertion stated, with out offering additional particulars.
Wahiduddin Mahmud, who heads the finance and planning ministry, insisted Yunus won’t step down early.
“We are going to carry out the responsibilities assigned to us,” Mahmud informed reporters Saturday. “We can’t simply abandon our duties.”
‘Return of dictatorship’
Yunus held talks Saturday night with key political events, together with those that have protested in opposition to the federal government this month.
His press secretary, Shafiqul Alam, stated the events all had “full trust” in Yunus, with an all-party assembly scheduled for Sunday.
Yunus met leaders of the highly effective Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen because the election front-runners, who’re pushing arduous for polls to be held by December.
“Any excuse to delay the election may open the door for the return of dictatorship,” senior BNP chief Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain stated after the assembly.
“The interim government and its allies will be held responsible for such a consequence.”
Yunus has stated polls might be held as early as December however that holding them later – with the deadline of June – would give the federal government extra time for reform.
But Hossain stated reforms, justice and elections weren’t “mutually exclusive goals.”
According to Bangladeshi media and navy sources, Army Chief Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman additionally stated this week that elections ought to be held by December, aligning with BNP calls for.
Bangladesh has a protracted historical past of navy coups, and the military retains a strong position.
The upcoming elections would be the first since Hasina fled to India, the place she stays in self-imposed exile, defying an arrest warrant to face trial for crimes in opposition to humanity associated to final 12 months’s police crackdown on protesters, throughout which no less than 1,400 folks have been killed.
Shafiqur Rahman, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist celebration, stated after his assembly with Yunus that he had requested for an election timetable – saying he was open to a later date if it allowed for reforms.
He additionally stated he sought “progress in the ongoing trials” of these from Hasina’s ousted regime.
‘Anti-democratic’
Nahid Islam, chief of the National Citizen Party (NCP), made up of many college students who spearheaded the rebellion that ended Hasina’s rule, has stated he needs later elections to permit time for “fundamental reforms.”
He fears rival events need swift elections to “assume power.”
Speaking after assembly with Yunus, he stated the NCP had “demanded a specific roadmap for reforms, trials and the election of a constituent assembly.”
Islam, an ally of Yunus who beforehand served in his cupboard, warned Saturday that he had seen “indications” {that a} “military-backed government could re-emerge – one that is anti-democratic and anti-people.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com