‘Awami League is at its strongest and most organized since 1975‘

There is an allegation that Awami League activists are too busy with businesses and money-making rather than following party ideology. What is your opinion of this?

Awami League is now at its strongest and most organized since 1975. As an organization, we are in our golden age, and this central working committee has worked hard to achieve that. Every leader and activist of Awami League is trying to build a Bangladesh in the spirit of the Liberation War and the dream of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

There are numerous conflicts at the grassroots level. What is Awami League’s plan to minimize these?

Bangladesh Awami League is a big party, and too many leaders of the party are trying to get nominations for the upcoming elections.  This has caused a number of disputes to form among nomination seekers. However, this competition will not affect Awami League during the polls. Awami League has been through harder times in the past. We will select the most suitable candidates and subsequently resolve any remaining issues. Hopefully, about 90% of conflicts will be resolved after the declaration of the nominees.

Tell us about the failures of the present government and your plans to overcome them in the upcoming days.

According to me, this Awami League government has not had a single failure. We put our best efforts into every sector of the country and tried to develop them. We have fulfilled every commitment that we promised to the nation in our 2008 election manifesto. We made a commitment that if people voted for boat, Awami League would try to build a prosperous, hunger free, developing, modern, and digital Bangladesh within 2021 and we have gone from being a Least Developed Country to a Developing Country by 2018, three years before our committed timeframe. However, we have to also admit that we could not finish several big projects, and that work on some projects is running slowly.

Do you think an election without Khaleda Zia or BNP will be acceptable this time?

BNP’s participation or boycott will not influence the election. BNP is a big party, but if BNP leaders are thinking that the validity of the next election will become dubious if they boycott it, then I would like to say that they are daydreaming. In 2014 BNP boycotted the election, and Awami League won it. Afterwards, we have been in power for almost 5 years. Did BNP’s boycott affect the outcome of the election? No, and neither will it this time. BNP has the right to participate in or boycott the election. We want all political parties that are registered with the election commission to participate in the next general election. Even Khaleda Zia’s absence will not hamper the election as she was convicted in a corruption case. The government did not do anything to manipulate the verdict.

BNP leaders allege that Awami League is trying to cause divides in BNP. Is this true?

It is true that BNP is Awami League’s political arch-rival, but Bangladesh Awami League never tried to nor will try to break BNP up. I think BNP leaders are enough to break the party up. BNP’s allegations against Awami League and the government are baseless.