Army role in B'desh government limited -minister

DHAKA, June 6 (Reuters) A senior Bangladesh minister said today the country's army-backed interim authority is a fully constitutional government with the main aim of holding a democratic election, and downplayed the military's role.

''The army is not ruling the country, but assisting a constitutional caretaker government, entrusted to hold a free and fair election on a level playing field,'' Mainul Husein, chief of the law and information ministries, told Reuters.

The interim government, which took over in January, has vowed to clean widespread corruption from politics before holding parliamentary elections around the end of 2008.

While the head of the government is a former central banker, and some other senior officials are civilians, a number are from the military.

Mainul, a lawyer, said the army was not ruling the country behind a front of civilians, as some political analysts suggest, but ''in fact they are assisting a civilian government aiming at establishing a system of good governance.'' He added that: ''(The military) are just helping to uphold the constitutional civilian government and backing up its efforts to deal with corrupt politicians and criminals.'' He denied a recent report by an India-based private television station which quoted him as saying the army was running the government.

The report also quoted Mainul as saying that ''without the army there would be no government.'' The interim government imposed a state of emergency, postponed an election planned for Jan. 22 and banned all political activity in the wake of deadly political violence.

As a result of the government's anti-corruption campaign, more than 170 senior politicians, including former ministers, media tycoons and a son of former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, Tareque Rahman, have been detained.

Mainul said to create a level playing field for all players in the coming election, the administration needed to do many important things.

He said those included ''weeding out corruption and freeing politics from the clutches of corrupt leaders and holders of black money,'' referring to illicit funds not declared to the authorities.

No previous government could function properly because of street violence, corruption and misuse of power by people at the helms of ruling parties, he said.

''As the past civilian government (headed by Khaleda Zia) had collapsed and the planned election had to be aborted, the army's assistance became essential for survival of the constitutional process.'' ''While we have restored public safety and law and order, we are now in the process of reforming politics, governance and the electoral system with a flawless voters' list with photographs.'' The U.S.-based National Institute for Democracy and International Affairs found the previous voters list, compiled in 2006 had more than 12 million fake entries.

This time, the army is involved in making a new list, by setting up camps all over the country, where voters will be photographed and enrolled, Election Commission officials said.

Among those facing fire under the caretaker authority are former prime ministers Khaleda, lately accused in a court case of being involved in an attempt to kill Hasina.

The charges stemmed from an August 2004 grenade attack on a rally of Hasina's party in Dhaka, in which 23 leaders and workers of the Awami League were killed. Hasina escaped unhurt but suffered partial loss of hearing.

Hasina herself faces charges of extortion, murders linked to political violence, and graft in deals to buy MiG-29 aircraft and a frigate while in power.

The two women deny the charges against them, and want an election held soon, arguing that they, not the interim government, are the true champions of democracy.

REUTERS KN RK1825