For a free and fair election there should be dialogues among the political parties and the government has to come forward first, eminent economist Rehman Sobhan has said.
He made the remarks while addressing a debate programme organised by the private satellite television channel ATN Bangla in a city auditorium on Friday morning.
“It is not possible that the country which has achieved independence through the bloodshed movement in 1971 will go through the nondemocratic procedure,” he said.
The economist said the country should conduct a violence free election where people can cast vote without fear.
“It is the challenge for the political parties to find the way out of such polls. For that, the political parties should hold talks,” he said.
Rehman Sobhan, who is the chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) also said the political parties should keep in mind that they are the public servants. The parties always shift blames from one to another, which should not happen.
“The parties have not held talks among themselves over important issues for many years. This trend is not common in any other country than Bangladesh,” he said.
The finale of the debate programme titled “Debate for Democracy” was focused on the political will of the ruling party for political consensus with the opposition ally. Two universities -- North South University and IBAIS University took part in the debate.
North South University played as the ruling party while IBAIS was the opposition. IBAIS won the debate.
