Awami League ‘transplanted force’ from abroad, won’t be allowed to fight elections: B’desh I&B Advisor
Dhaka, March 22 (IANS) A key advisor of the interim government led by Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has declared that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party won’t be allowed any ground in Bangladesh.
While speaking about holding national elections in December, Information and Broadcasting Advisor Mahfuj Alam also called Awami league a “transplanted force” from abroad, local media reported on Saturday.
“Awami League is not a domestic force … rather it is essentially a transplanted force from abroad. The strings of this kite (Awami League) are held in Delhi. This kite will no longer be allowed to fly in Bangladesh,” Alam was quoted as saying by the country’s leading Bengali daily, Prothom Alo.
Yunus had recently stated that the interim government has no plans to ban the Awami League. In another statement last month, Yunus had said that Awami League has to decide on whether it will contest the elections, whenever they take place eventually.
“They (the Awami League) have to decide if they want to do it, I cannot decide for them. The election commission decides who participates in the election,” Yunus was quoted as saying by the local media in an interview given to the British public service broadcaster.
Statements made by Yunus suggested that he had climbed down from his earlier comments on the same issue, when he had commented that Awami League has “no place” in Bangladesh’s politics.
Experts reckon that the contradictory statements by the interim government reflect a breeding conspiracy to keep the Awami League away from electoral politics.
Several student groups and the newly-formed National Citizen Party, who were behind the nationwide protest and violence in Bangladesh in July and August 2024 leading to the fall of the government led by Hasina, are also now aggressively demanding a ban on Awami League.
The unceremonious exit of Hasina last August was globally seen as a major setback to the democratic set-up in the country. The interim government has also received massive criticism for providing shelter to radical and extremist Islamic outfits.
In October, the interim government led by Yunus banned Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of Awami League, under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009. The ban cited BCL’s alleged involvement in murder, torture, rape, and terrorism, and was seen as a precursor to banning the parent organisation.
However, the same interim government had lifted a ban on the radical Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir immediately after the fall of the Hasina government in August 2024.
In December, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) AMM Nasir Uddin, during a meeting with election officials at the Chittagong Circuit House, said that the Awami League is allowed to participate in elections unless the government or the judiciary issues a ban against the party.
Any ban on Awami League will go against the United Nations directive of not banning any political party from participating in the elections.
“Refrain from political party bans that would undermine a return to a genuine multiparty democracy and effectively disenfranchise a large part of the Bangladeshi electorate,” said a fact-finding report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
–IANS
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