Two weeks have passed since Bangladesh’s caretaker government assumed power after a deadly youth protest, but Khaleda Zia’s former party is insisting on specifics from Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus. It fears a repeat of a delay by a military-backed hesitant government beyond the stipulated 90 days.
And the ‘pol-itic’ crises are not over yet in Bangladesh. The caretaker Muhammad Yunus government that is in charge of the state following the weeks of bloodshed and protests that have claimed the lives of more than 600 people has one job, though a very daunting one at that: conduct elections for a proper government.
The Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government was thrown out of power through a youth uprising within eight months of its formation.
The second largest party in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who for a decade was in prison or out of politics and the son of Khaleda, and the acting chairman of BNP Tarique Rahman, who resides in London, demands early elections, while Yunus has suggested that there will be a delay.
In how many months can the Yunus government afford to put off the parliamentary polls?
Since 1990, the caretaker government is the fifth government of Bangladesh.
This is not the first time for Bangladesh to have a caretaker government since 1990, when the political leadership of the country formed such a government for conducting the parliamentary election.
The plan was made to remove General Hussain Arshad’s military rule when both the political parties sign the 1990 Joint Declaration to form a caretaker government that would allow a fair and free election.
