STATEMENT:Mysterious Steps of the Unconstitutional Caretaker Gov’t Confused the Secular Democratic Future of Bangladesh.

Adv. Shahanur Islam Saikot Programme Manager-Legal & Human Rights 

 The care taker gov’t took over power on 11.01.07 under Article 58 (c) of Bangladesh constitution .As per the said Article of the constitution the care taker Govt. only task is to hold election within 90 days and to hand over power to the people representative .But this care taker Gov’t keeping away their main objective has engaged its prime efforts to de-estabilize the main two political parities Bangladesh Nationalist Party (B.N.P)and Awami League (A.L) . In the name of Anti-corruption drive the Task Force and Anti Corruption Commission Mej. Genl. (Retd) M A Matin and Lt. Gen. (retd) Hasan Mashud Chowdhury respectively have jumped upon the politicians all over the country. Many senior leaders including Sheikh Hasina, President Bangladesh Awami League and Begum Khaleda Zia, Chair Person of BNP both former Prime Ministers of Bangladesh has been put in to jail on false and fabricated allegations. Till now about 2,50, 000 political persons have been detained in the jail without trial. High court bench has granted bail to Sheikh Hasina and some others leaders. But the government as decided by Army authority is arresting in another false case to continue the detention. None of the Politicians of AL and BNP arrested by this gov’t since 11 January 2007 could be released from the jail. But the government is not touching any leader of fundamentalist political party Jamat- E – Islami and its terrorist allies though severe complain of terrorist activities, smuggling of huge amount of arms and ammunitions, corruptions have been found against them. The perception of the whole nation is that the arrest of sheikh Hasina is absolutely unjustified in the context of her personal and political reputations. From top to bottom, she is a secular, democratic and nationalist leader. She has never compromised with undemocratic regimes, particularly Army backed regimes. To uphold her democratic movement she had to encounter several attempts of death. But she never succumbed to any threat on her path to established secular democracy and human rights in Bangladesh. She is known as daughter of democracy to the people of Bangladesh. She was prime minister from 23 June 1996 to 15 July 2001. As a prime minister she established transparency of her government by introducing Prime Minister Question hour in the parliament and T.V. media. She took many positive steps for poverty alleviation. Due to her honest, sincere and effective administrative capabilities the food deficit hungry Bangladesh not only became self sufficient but also produced 10, 00,000 ton excess food grain. The price level of all commodities was absolutely stable during her 5 years gov’t period. In all sectors of development like education, health, communications, electricity, sport, industry, business, employment etc the county was galloping towards progress and the people of Bangladesh were aspiring to reach medium developed country by 2015. From October 2001 to 2006 sheikh Hasina was not in gov’t. So the allegation of de-institionalization of gov’t organization like Election Commission, Judiciary, Public Service Commission, Civil Administration, Police etc to manipulate the election do not lie upon Sheikh Hasina. The Care Taker government Chief Adviser, other Advisors, the army chief Gen. Moyeen U Ahmed are often pronouncing “level playing field” for a fair and neutral election. But till now no specific definition of so called “level Playing Field” has been announced before the nation. In the name of so called level playing field slogan the gov’t is arresting and detaining top political leaders without any specific charge and they are not allowed bail under the shadow of emergency Rule. It is surprising to note that the gov’t is victimizing the leaders of BNP and AL. Because in any fair election either of those two parties will form the gov’t. The political victimization by the care taker government clearly shows their ill motive to cut in size those most popular political Parties in the hope to promote the fundamentalist Jamat-e- Islami and newly formed Progressive democratic Party (PDP) of gov’t. Selected party Chief Dr. Ferdous Ahmed Qureshi into power in the next election. It means the purpose of the so called level playing field is nothing but cut in size the BNP and Al to the level of Jamal-E-Islami and PDP. The people of Bangladesh have experienced in the post election that the election conducting gov’t Authorities including chief election commissioner, civil Administration, Army, Police etc were solely responsible for election rigging, declaration of false election result. So, naturally the people expected that the slogan of level playing field will be manifested by detecting those corrupted gov’t. Officials band taking drastic actions against them. But this gov’t. has never touched any those corrupt official so far. Even no election conducting rule has been formulated to punish those gov’t officials who will be found to manipulate the next general election through rigging and false declaration of election result in favor of their chosen candidate. The gov’t has pointed their finger only to the politician for fair election knowing fully well that those politicians have little to do during polling in presence of mighty election conducting gov’t officials. For fair election Sheikh Hasina as leaders of grand political alliance put the demand of correct voter list with photograph and transparent ballot box. The EC has agreed for voter list with photograph but refused transparent ballot box. The European commission proposed to supply the required numbers of transparent ballot boxes free of cost and the produced a sample of such box before the election commission. The people of Bangladesh do not find any valid ground for rejection of transparent ballot box by the election commission. On the other hand preparation of voter list with photograph is very difficult and prolonging task and no positive steps could be taken so far for 7 months except only some town out of total country. Considering the prolonging process of preparation of voter list with the photograph the honorable Supreme Court suggested updating the existing voter list. But the election commission has turned down the suggestion of the honorable high court division of supreme court with the plea that they can not go against the demand of political parties put forward by Sheikh Hasina with out other demand of easy procurable transparent ballot box has been rejected by the same election Commission. Such double faced decision of the election commission clearly has created doubt that they have ill motive to put the next general election in to trap of voter list preparation to create scope of prolonging power for the present unconstitutional care taker gov’t. So the nation is in dark about the future of democracy in Bangladesh.