Ex-B'desh PM takes on prez over constitution

Dhaka, Nov 10: 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.

''He is trying to mislead people by wrongly interpreting the constitution,'' said Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, a former prime minister and more recently the main opposition leader.

''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 late yesterday the constitution defines an interim administration as a ''non-party caretaker government''.

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

Iajuddin has been strongly backed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of immediate past prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and its key ally the Jamaat-e-Islami party.

Iajuddin, a former university teacher, was handpicked by Khaleda as titular head of the country in 2002.

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 M A 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 her alliance would paralyse the country through blockades and other protests from November 12, she has said.

REUTERS

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