BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed Friday welcomed Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam’s statement that the next parliamentary elections “will not be held under a partisan government.”
Thanking Syed Ashraf, he said: “If you move forward further, the prevailing crisis will be resolved.
“Syed Ashraful Islam earlier said the next elections would be held under the prime minister. Now he has shifted from his earlier stance, saying the head of the interim government would be finalised through discussion,” Moudud told a discussion organised by Jatiyatabadi Muktijuddher Projanma.
Democracy in Bangladesh could not be stabilised in the past 42 years “since a one-party system was introduced in 1975,” Moudud said at the discussion meeting at the National Press Club.
“The present Awami League government is doing the same…It cannot also tolerate differences of opinions,” he said.
The BNP leader alleged that the government had destroyed the whole administration, including the Election Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission.
“We [the BNP] will give them independence – when we assume office – to strengthen democracy,” he said.
Moudud alleged that losing its popularity the government had started “to control everything through repression and oppression.”
The former minister said: “The government imposed ban on meetings and rallies. It shut down two private television channels and the daily Amar Desh. It is killing people at night. People will give it a bitter reply one day for such misdeeds.
“The government is trying to stay in office forcefully. We want to protect the country’s democracy and strengthen it. That is why we are far away from violence.”
Moudud warned that the government would be compelled to realise the demand of holding the next elections under a non-partisan neutral government if it did not accept the demand right now.
