Fuel to the Fire
The Awami League refuses to be ruffled by 'threats' of an opposition alliance among BNP, JP and Jamaat, their four-point list of demands and the ultimatum issued upon the ruling party to meet them in 30 days or face an all-out opposition movement. In the process, facts are not being faced, that's how one tends to look at it.
The AL Presidium meeting chaired by party chief and country's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday dismissed out of hand the opposition's 4-point charter of demands and their related threats for movement and boycott, etc. As if party spokesman Telecommunications Minister Mohd Nasim's negative reactions to opposition demands on January 7, the very day these were put forward, were not enough, an 'outright rejection' had to come from the presidium, the highest policymaking caucus of the party, to signify the 'could-care-less' attitude.
This perfunctory approach of the ruling party to 'a gathering storm' on the political horizon sounds not only unfortunate but irresponsible. This cannot carry any conviction with the people badly fatigued as they are by the confrontational atmosphere around them. In addition to the lack of seriousness displayed, we are perturbed by the reactionary language being freely used. The Prime Minister lashed out at the opposition in her last two public meetings saying that the four-point demand was the product of conspiracy hatched by 'vote dacoits, autocrats and Rajakars.' But didn't she herself align with all of them at one or other stage of our contemporary political history? But for Ershad's support the AL could not have formed the government in '96, Jamaat would find it hard to rehabilitate itself and, on the positive side, were not for the AL joining hands with the BNP in 1990 autocracy would have perhaps continued.
Whereas it is for the government party to take the lead for bridge-building and national reconciliation in a heightening state of confrontation none expects to see it in the role of adding fuel to the fire.
Of the four demands, three deal directly with the work of the Election Commission. The government has very little to do with them. However the fourth one - dealing with opposition workers being harassed either through police action or through court cases - merits serious consideration by the government. We urge that talks should be initiated by the government in this regard. Our appeal to the ruling party would be to start a dialogue on the last point in order that a deeper political crisis can be headed off in the nick of time.
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