Bangladesh president slammed over constitution

DHAKA, Nov 10 (Reuters) A frontrunner in the race to become Bangladesh's next prime minister says the president has misinterpreted the constitution, sparking a new row in the run-up to January's general election.

President Iajuddin Ahmed said yesterday the present form of government was presidential and that any criticism of the interim administration would amount to interference and was unacceptable.

But today Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, a former prime minister and more recently the main opposition leader, accused him of misreading the constitution.

''He is trying to mislead people,'' she said.

''A parliamentary form of government very much exists in Bangladesh, where the constitution allows an interim authority to act neutrally between the end of a government and election to choose a new parliament,'' Hasina said.

Iajuddin, a former university teacher, was handpicked by the last Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, as titular head of the country in 2002.

But he also assumed the role of head of the caretaker government after Khaleda's obligatory resignation on October. 29.

Under Bangladesh's constitution, the government must resign three months before a scheduled election in favour of an interim authority that is supposed to oversee unbiased polls.

A former Supreme Court chief justice had been due to lead the transitional government, but his appointment sparked a wave of violence prompting Iajuddin to take over.

STRONGLY BACKED Iajuddin is strongly backed by Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) its key ally, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Khaleda said Iajuddin should not listen to those trying to ''hinder the process of the election and push the country into anarchy''.

The Awami League and its allies want Iajuddin to remove Chief Election Commissioner MA Aziz and his deputies, whom they accuse of a pro-BNP bias.

Hasina has given the president until Sunday to remove Aziz to prove his neutrality as caretaker chief, otherwise she says her alliance will paralyse the country through blockades and other protests from November. 12.

Muhammad Yunus, who has won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize for his grassroots efforts to alleviate poverty, today urged political parties to have patience before branding the caretaker president as partisan or biased.

''It's too early to make a final judgement. He seems to be trying to perform the duties vested on him,'' Yunus said.

Foreign envoys, including US ambassador Patricia A Butenis and her European colleagues, are shuttling between rival camps trying to defuse the political tension gripping the country ahead of elections.

On top of their efforts, US assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, Richard Boucher, is due to visit Dhaka tomorrow for three days.

REUTERS SP RK1525