Editorial
Chief adviser throws down the
gauntlet before politicians
The chief adviser's address to the nation on Monday night was carefully crafted and predictably focused on the upcoming dialogue between his government and the political parties, which, he announced, would commence on May 22. He made an impassioned plea to the political parties to come to the dialogue with an open mind and sought to assure them that his administration did not hold any grudge against anyone and would keep an open mind during the talks. However, he left the political parties with hardly any space to keep an open mind, as he detailed what appears to be a 'to-do' list for them and did not take into cognisance any of the demands and expectations voiced by them in the run-up to his address to the nation.
First, one of the major demands of all the major parties is that the government should immediately withdraw the state of emergency. But the chief adviser made it clear that the state of emergency would not be withdrawn and only certain relevant provisions of the Emergency Powers Rules might be either relaxed or suspended as and when his government deemed it fit, that too on conditions the political parties might not be comfortable with. Second, the political parties have insisted that the government should not hold local government elections before the parliamentary polls. Again, the chief adviser paid no heed to the demand and iterated that his government would help the Election Commission conduct elections to some city corporations, municipalities and union and upazila parishads before the elections to the ninth Jatiya Sangsad, which, he said, would be held in the third week of December. Third, the political parties have demanded that Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina and other political parties, who, they say, have been illegally detained, should be released before the dialogue. The chief adviser did not bother to make even a passing remark on the issue.
Moreover, the chief adviser said the political parties should promise not to question the results of the general elections, which would be presided over by an Election Commission, which has already made itself controversial through various actions and inactions and whose credibility remains eminently questionable. When the chief adviser could so readily put paid to the aspirations of the political parties, it would be rather foolhardy to expect them to be enthusiastic about the dialogue. In such circumstances, one can perhaps only hope against hope that the talks would be fruitful.
If the chief adviser was inconsiderate about the expectations of the political parties, he was cruel about the aspirations of the people at large. There was not the faintest indication as to how his government planned to revive the economy that it itself had rendered stagnant through a series of arbitrary actions. The piece de resistance of his speech came when he claimed that his government was committed to establishing the rule of law. With the people's fundamental rights suspended under a state of emergency, complaints galore of the judiciary not being allowed to function freely, mass media forced to work in a suffocating environment created by illegal interference almost on a routine basis by a security intelligence agency, such talks surely come as empty rhetoric.
Overall, the chief adviser's address to the nation puts the political parties in a tight corner. They have been given two options – to concede to the wishes of the interim government or go to the people to have their demands realised.
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