Bangladesh’s ruling party defied pressure yesterday to open talks with the opposition after its walkover win in an election that was marred by unprecedented bloodshed, boycotts and low turnout.
Despite warnings that Sunday’s crushing victory did not amount to a mandate, the ruling Awami League vowed to “eliminate militancy” as the death toll from election day violence rose to 24.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which refused to field candidates in the election, ratcheted up the pressure on the government by extending a general strike until tomorrow.
Newspapers said the government was leading Bangladesh toward disaster, but one of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s top lieutenants ruled out early dialogue with the BNP to agree on a framework for a new vote.
“We’re not thinking about talks right now,” Bangladeshi Minister of the Environment Hasan Mahmud said. “Our top priority now is to form a government and contain violence. We have to eliminate violence and militancy to give the people a breather.”
The Awami League cruised to victory in Sunday’s election after the BNP and 20 other opposition parties refused to take part.
With all but a handful of seats still to be declared, the Awami League had won about 80 percent of the 300 parliamentary seats with allies mopping up the rest.
However, few were in a mood for celebrating after the carnage of election day, when hundreds of polling stations were torched and at least 21 people killed, mostly by police who were the target of firebomb attacks.
The Daily Star called it the bloodiest election in Bangladeshi history and said the Awami League had won “a hollow victory which gives it neither a mandate nor an ethical standing to govern effectively.”
“Yes, we can’t say it was a universally acceptable election,” Bangladeshi Minister of Communications Obaidul Kader said. “The festive atmosphere was absent and the turnout was ordinary ... but you can’t say it is unacceptable. Our next task is to form the government. We are ready to hold talks with the opposition to find a consensus, but first they have to eschew violence.”
The BNP’s leader, former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia, has been under de facto house arrest for more than a week after mobilizing supporters in a bid to derail the election.
Hasina, who first came to power in 1996 and then thrashed Zia in a 2008 comeback, has accused her arch rival of orchestrating the violence that reached a crescendo on Sunday.
The BNP in turn blames the government for the crisis after it refused demands for the election to be organized by a neutral caretaker administration as in previous years.
BNP vice president Shamsher Chowdhury said the low turnout showed the overwhelming desire for elections to be overseen by a neutral caretaker administration.
“This government must declare this election null and void and we need a new election organized by a non-party government,” he said. “The government should not waste any more time.”
Western powers, including the US, refused to send observers, although the US Department of State said it would be “prepared to reengage our observation efforts ... in a more conducive environment.”
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS