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Leaders Speak Out
We are grateful to Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia for talking to this paper last week, in two separate exclusive interviews, which was. indeed, a privilege for a newspaper as young as The Daily Star. We like to think that the privilege granted to us underscores a recognition for this paper by the leaders of the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The two long interviews, extensively reported elsewhere in today's issue, deal with wide-ranging subjects, raised in candid questions and then answered in a forthright manner by the leaders of the two parties. Neither tried to evade any question. In her own way, each one showed that she knew her mind.
Thanks to the two interviews, we have a fairly clear idea not only about the thinking of the two parties but also on how the minds of the leaders are working, on issues ranging from the future of the private sector to the use of foreign capital in our industrialisation programme, from the demand to repeal the Special Powers Act to the trial of Hussain Mohammad Ershad. It is for the first time that the two leaders have been most specific on a number of Issues covered during the interviews.
The interviews reveal an area, regretfully, a narrow one of a broad understanding that already exists between the two leaders, but several differences in their interpretations of the political movement that led to the fall of the Ershad regime and serious divergences on the question of possible changes in the political system in Bangladesh.
While economic experts here and abroad should be relieved that both support the country's liberal policies towards foreign capital and the growth of the private sector—this, we believe, has been already communicated to aid agencies and donor countries—the two leaders remain strongly committed to a democratic system for this country and firmly opposed to forces which, for reasons of their own, would like to undermine the country's transition to a constitutional form of government. In this respect, the credibility of the two leaders and of their organisations should remain above doubt.
The concern of this paper or perhaps of the nation as a whole-lies elsewhere. The two interviews have focussed on the differences between the two leaders which, we fear, may well have sharpened in recent weeks. In answering questions. the two leaders took every opportunity to revive contentious issues which had marred the past relations between their two organisations. Just as they did not hesitate to indulge in mutual recriminations in relation to their present policies. Maybe this is inevitable at the time of an election which, as some say, is usually fought and won on the basis of differences among contending parties, not on consensus. However, we believe that in the volatile situation that exists in the country today, a bit more moderation and less of verbal attacks from all sides would contribute to creating the right kind of climate for a free and fair election.
At this moment, there is very little interest among political parties in formulating a code of interest for the election and still less Interest in developing a national consensus on political and economic issues, backed by all groupings in the new parliament after the election. Let us hope that on all these matters, political parties, especially AL and BNP, have not taken their final positions. A bit more rethinking on the part of both Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia would be welcome by all. especially by moderate middle-of-the-road forces in the country.