The US Ambassador’s visit to the Election Commission Head Office and also meeting with the Chief Election Commissioner seems a diplomatic maneuvering to deliver a message of recognition of its legal entity. Otherwise, why did he visit the EC office at such a time, while the BNP-Jamaat accommodated a large scale of massive violence on the street, that which trailed journalists and cop’s deaths in the hands of their brutal muscle forces on 28th October.
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With this critical observation, I would say, indeed, the Election Commission is the “Caretaker Government” that has the constitutional power to ensure people’s voting rights to hold a free and fair election. In this context, we can vividly say that the Election Commission has the legal capacity to ensure election engineering-free polls. On the same note, so far, the USA has got this understanding now, and seems diplomatically correct, that the USA has realized that the BNP-Jamaat political block made havoc on public life is a negative element that they hide to them. Not only these negative activities, but the USA was also entirely surprised knowing of the BNP orchestrated fraudulence of the American President “Joe Biden’s Advisor’ Mian Jahidul Islam alias Arefy’s Press Meeting at the BNP party head office surrounded by the senior leaders’ recognition. My experience for more than two decades with the Western diplomatic mission’s political department encourages me to say that such a “fraud and irresponsible display” can’t be welcomed by that respective country. I guess, it has caused major damage to the party’s leadership capacity and prudent quality and branded them bankrupt.
However, in the need for a proper process of democratic continuation, under the proven situation of those political parties’ ring of terror, the USA has given tacit recognition to the present Election Commission’s capacity as the legal entity that this is the right institution to hold the free and fair polls that the country’s people want.
The role of the US Ambassador Peter De Haas appeared in a situation when the BNP-Jamaat political forces country-wide blockade was on for three days starting from today, 31st October. In a press statement, soon after the meeting, Ambassador Peter De Haas urged Bangladesh’s political parties to sit for unconditional dialogue to find a way to “free, fair and peaceful” elections, reminding them that conflict is not the path to democracy. He said this while talking to reporters after a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal at the Election Bhaban today, on Tuesday.
If we recheck days back records, a joint pre-election observer team from the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), which arrived in Bangladesh earlier this month to see the election environment, also returned to the US and recommended meaningful dialogue between political parties for “participatory and violence-free” elections. The USA Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asian Affairs Afrin Akter told Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen during a visit to Bangladesh that the US government also agrees on this. In response, Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader said, “BNP says they want the prime minister’s resignation, dissolve parliament, caretaker government, resign from the Election Commission. We will not agree to this conditional dialogue. “We will think of dialogue when they (BNP) withdraw these four conditions. We have no thoughts on any conditional dialogue. If they withdraw the condition, then it will be seen.”
But the BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir showed their rigid face and said they are not ready to sit for an “unconditional dialogue” with the government. He said, “It is clear to us that you (prime minister) should resign, dissolve parliament, hand over power to a neutral government and form a new Election Commission and hold elections under them.”
But in the process of holding a free and fair election, every stakeholder should sit for a proper dialogue with the Election Commission, and such a dialogue is needed among the major democratic political forces for the real development of the election system. Beyond question, only their positive role can help to develop a congenial atmosphere for holding the election or in other words, a level playing field for all to participate. Avoiding this “unconditional dialogue process”, nothing can be achieved except destruction. In any such reality, the country will only be facing horrifying days and this would yield unwanted negative directions for the whole nation. In addition, despite many reservations to appreciate other countries interventions into our political discourse, as a senior citizen and political observer of Bangladesh, I welcome any initiated positive move on the political ground by any development partner’s senior diplomate.