B'desh opposition suspicious of PM's offer to talk

Dhaka, Sep 16: Opposition parties in Bangladesh today refused to immediately grab Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's offer to talk about electoral reforms ahead of January's polls.

''We have to carefully consider the proposal ... which may be another ploy by the government to take the opposition's campaign for reforms off the tracks,'' said Abdul Jalil, general secretary of the main opposition Awami League.

Khaleda told parliament before the weekend that Jalil should talk to Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, secretary-general of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), about the reforms and other issues relating to a general election due in January.

Awami chief Sheikh Hasina proposed in February that the government should remove the chief election commissioner and his deputies, accusing them of a pro-government bias, as a precondition to free and fair elections.

The opposition also wants a say in choosing the head of a caretaker administration, to whom Khaleda would hand over power by the end of October when her five-year term expires. The caretaker authority would supervise the new election.

In recent speeches, Khaleda has repeatedly rejected the opposition's demands. But her new stance has surprised opposition leaders, compelling them to think twice before responding.

The US Ambassador in Bangladesh, Patricia A Butenis, last week met a cross-section of political leaders, including Jalil, who said the envoy had ''offered to mediate talks between rival parties, if needed''.

A US embassy spokesman said today they were willing to ''assist in launching a dialogue (between political rivals) to help resolve the country's political stalemate''.

Senior Awami leader Tofayel Ahmed said Khaleda ''softened her tone'' following violent opposition protests over the last couple of weeks that ''made the government somewhat nervous.'' ''But this could be an attempt to defuse an opposition plan to hold a grand rally in Dhaka on Monday,'' Tofayel said today.

The opposition was likely to announce a plan of action at the rally to force Khaleda to accept the reform proposals.

Hasanul Haque Inu, chief of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, a partner of a 14-party alliance that Hasina leads, said today: ''Khaleda is trying to perpetuate her power by keeping opposition out of the next polls on one pretext or another.''

Reuters