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BNP faces backlash

Haroon Habib

President invites rival parties for talks

DHAKA: Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed on Saturday sought to end the country's political crisis by inviting Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil and BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuyan for talks, after the former Chief Justice, K.M. Hasan, declined to take over as adviser to a caretaker government. On Friday, the President had announced that Mr. Hasan was `sick,' shortly after Prime Minister Khaleda Zia met the President.

After Mr. Hasan announced he was no more in the fray, the Opposition, which had been urging the former Chief Justice not to help a "tyrant [of an] alliance to rig the next poll," on Saturday thanked him.

Mr. Jalil, who is also coordinator of the14-party combine led by the Awami League, on Saturday requested the President not to "go by the Constitution" in choosing a caretaker.

The Opposition alliance asked the outgoing combine to stop "further fouls." It also urged its own workers to be ready for face any "conspiracy" — until free, fair and credible elections are held.

Popular resistance

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami faced tough popular resistance on Saturday. Thousands of Opposition activists torched and attacked houses and other buildings owned by the "people's enemies" and faced the ruling party cadres, who in turn allegedly attacked them with guns, bombs and other weapons.

Reports from across Bangladesh spoke of Opposition supporters coming out in their thousands to mark the end of BNP-led rule. They fought against the guns, bombs and sticks of the government supporters soon after Ms. Zia gave a televised speech to the nation on Friday night.

A street battle broke out in Dhaka when Awami League activists fought armed cadres of the Jamaat after two Jamaat cadres and an Opposition worker were reportedly killed and a few hundred people were injured. The police, used by the outgoing administration mercilessly to club the Opposition, stood by.

Major setback

On Thursday, Ms. Zia's party had suffered a major setback when some two dozen MPs, a Minister, a former Speaker of Parliament and three former Ministers deserted the BNP to form a new party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

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