Editorial
Creating an atmosphere for elections
Lift the emergency or explain why it has to go on
Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda revealed yesterday that he has demanded of the government that emergency be either lifted or relaxed in all places where city corporation or municipal polls are to be held. He has also asked that indoor politics be permitted from March 20. The difficulties associated with the holding of polls to the four city corporations and nine municipalities, slated for April, as well as the projected general elections by the end of the year, thus become obvious. So far the political parties have remained in a straitjacket where preparing for the elections is concerned. In broad measure, it is the people of Bangladesh whose minds are now being greatly exercised over the prospects of early elections and a return to democratic government.
Considering such a state of affairs, it is only fair that the government now explain why the emergency needs to go on. If general elections before the end of this year remain the goal, as the Chief Adviser and others in the government have reassured us endlessly, it is important that the air be cleared of the mist around such priorities. The emergency was imposed more than a year ago as a step toward arresting the slide in law and order and a decline in democratic politics. A year later, with no perceptible moves toward lifting the emergency yet in place, is the country to believe that the conditions which prevailed prior to January 11 last year still exist? But that is not the reality either, for in this one year a remarkable degree of progress has been made in a number of areas. It stands to reason, therefore, that the government come up with a clear statement of intent on how soon it means to relax the emergency so that the parties can engage in indoor politics or when it plans to withdraw the emergency altogether for the political classes to undertake a full fledged electoral campaign. It must not be forgotten that public support for the emergency, when it came, was there in plenty. More than a year on, it is the public as well as the outside world that would now like to see the government signal a return to normal conditions through doing away with the emergency and facilitating the holding of elections.
It is our opinion, and one we feel is shared by the rest of the country, that the government must either lift the emergency country wide or come forth with credible explanations of why the emergency needs to go on and till what point of time. The public must be taken into confidence, for the simple and extremely important reason that political reforms, either on a national scale or within the parties, cannot take place unless the present restrictive measures are relaxed or withdrawn completely. With the country almost into the first quarter of the year, a clear sense of direction in national politics vis-à-vis a return to elected, democratic government is today an imperative.
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