Editorial
EC invitation to BNP faction
Legal opinion should have been sought on the issue
By inviting the Saifur Rahman-led faction of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to a dialogue on November 22, the Election Commission has created an impression of having taken sides. The EC's issuance of a letter inviting BNP acting secretary general Hafizuddin Ahmed to the dialogue does not convince us of the logic behind it. There are far too many factors that today make it hard for anyone to fathom the real situation vis-a-vis the BNP constitution. Bluntly stated, the constitution is very ambiguous, indeed confusing nature.
In the last few days, a serious point that has emerged about the way the BNP works (or does not work) relates to the many lacunae in its constitution. For one thing, the party chairperson is the one individual who can call meetings of the party council or standing committee. For another, the constitution does not say which individual will carry out such a function in the absence of the chairperson. There is no provision for an acting chairperson or acting secretary general, despite the fact that the person who has received the EC invitation has been designated acting secretary general.
It is issues like these that the EC should have given serious thought to. And then there are other issues as well. One is that from a strictly legal point of view the term of the chairperson came to an end eight years ago. Under the provisions of the BNP constitution, the party chairperson is elected for a two-year term, after which she or he can be re-elected. However, since 1997 when Begum Zia was re-elected chairperson unopposed, there has been no new election. In other words, over the last eight years, or what should have normally been four terms, Begum Zia has operated as party chief in a legal vacuum. This fact alone renders her locus standi open to serious question. In turn, all appointments she has made to various positions in the party come under equally serious question. The implications are obvious. Even the standing committee she presided over and which now has pushed her loyalists aside itself lacks legitimacy. Overall, therefore, the BNP is structurally in an untenable situation.
Considering such conditions, the Election Commission, rather than issuing its letter, should have taken a couple of steps before inviting any one group. First, it should have delayed sending out the letter of invitation; and, second, it should have sought legal opinion on the correct picture obtaining in the BNP before choosing one faction over the other. By ignoring such points, it may have created a new problem and may have unwittingly laid itself open to controversy. It should not have walked into what is clearly a quagmire.
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