[ALOCHONA] Who's plotting to torpedo election roadmap?

Who's plotting to torpedo election roadmap?   M. Shahidul Islam   "If something can go wrong, it will," so posits the Murphy's Law. As many things are going the wrong way to derail the scheduled polling in December, people smells the existence of a thickening plot which can endanger the nation's resilience to thrust ahead as an aspiring democracy.The fomenting of such a plot can be seen both inductively and deductively. What has caused the 1/11 and the postponement of the February 2007 election is still causing much of the troubles with respect to the ensuing election too.    Looking back one finds, even after the removal of the controversial CEC and relenting to most of the demands of then 14- party- alliance, the Awami League (AL) and its leaders did not desist in late 2006 from waging a war with 'Boitha-Logi'. Worse still, they even resorted to inhuman killing of opposition political activists in broad day light.    The mood of the time revealed the AL's diehard determination to ascend to power at any cost and to justify that singular aim by employing all available means, including murder and mayhem. What followed are footnotes of history by now.    Contrary to the AL's expectation that the military would pack the BNP into the museum of antiquity- just because the AL and its secular allies are friends of the West and India- the military and the CG behaved in a much fairer and neutral manner, nabbing the political and business criminals of all denominations and putting them on trial.    Ever since, much water has flown beneath the Jamuna bridge and the AL leader Sheikh Hasina was released on parole months ago. Another top leader of the party, Abdul Jalil, was allowed to go for treatment abroad. In the USA, UK and Canada, Hasina was received by top diplomats of the nation (deservedly so as the former PM) and the CG and its 'garrison gurus' seemed predisposed to whisk the AL into power due to pressure from powers without.That seemed like the beginning of a dark age, and, although the prevalence of emergency rules did not facilitate the venting of grievances by the aggrieved, the pro-Khaleda faction of the BNP kept crying in the wild against what seemed like a nakedly pro-AL partisan attitude of the CG.    Observers at home and abroad, however, deduced the CG's leverage on power as wobbly and shivering. "The CG was doing what the West and India wanted it to do," mourned some observers in private. Meanwhile, mindful of this ongoing machination, Khaleda Zia remained stubborn and resolutely opposed to any deal making with the CG despite Tareq Zia's critical health condition having deteriorated further. Sources say, in desperation, Khaleda sent a message in mid-August to one senior General of the army with a dire warning that 'she would not compromise on anything other than a fair election as per the EC's roadmap, come what may.' That is what has caused a tectonic shift in the seemingly pro-AL stance of the CG once some senior military officers made it clear that the military must be seen as fair and the election without BNP's participation would be meaningless.    Anecdotes of this nature are not mere gossips, and hearsay too deserves evaluation on the scale of probability. Besides, we have no reason not to believe that such a 'behind the scene' maneuvering did not occur in recent weeks, especially when reports say Khaleda and Tareq are on their way out of the prison and the legal ground has been paved smoothly to make that happen sooner.    Add to this the BNP and Jamat secretary generals' meeting with Khaleda in prison last week and the CEC's virtual rendering of an apology for having invited the reformist faction of the BNP into a dialogue with the EC earlier. All these are indicative of the CG's changed mindset to hold an election with participation of all major stakeholders. That's undoubtedly a good omen in so far as the peace, stability and progress of the nation are concerned.But the AL does not seem to want any of those. The party is too busy in injecting one after another divisive issues into the body politic of the nation and finds it difficult to crawl out of the cocooned 'one-party-mentality' of the 1970s.    Remonstrating at the news of Tarek Rahman's forthcoming release, AL's acting secretary general Syed Ashraful Islam said, "If the godfather of corruption is released, government has no moral or legal right to keep anybody else in captivity." The AL also demanded on August 31 that the election be held in November, instead of December.    The demand for November polling came soon after the CEC's rendering of regrets for having invited the 'Major Hafiz faction' of the BNP into a dialogue with the EC. With that warning, the AL wanted to push the EC into a tighter spot, despite being aware that the voters list would not be finalized before late October.    Then, there are blames being poured against the judiciary for granting bails to BNP captives and for absolving many of the alleged accused of the jail killing incident of November 1975 due to, according to judges, lack of evidence.    Let us now put some doses of rationality into these accusations, especially the ones being leveled against the Judiciary. Was the court fair when Hasina, Jalil and many others were granted bail? Why should the blame of unfairness only spring

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