Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged her party leaders to have patients and work to make the ongoing reforms dialogue successful while going ahead with their reforms movement.

'The government has been conspiring to foil the dialogue and they can foil it any time fearing they

FROM PAGE 1

would not able to rig the next election," Hasina, also Awami League (AL) president, said while exchanging views with her party's Dhaka city unit leaders at her Dhanmondi office.

She said the government is sitting for the dialogue due to the mounting public pressure. The AL chief urged the government to accept the reforms proposal without any delay to relieve the people from anxiety over the political deadlock. She also urged the government to take initiatives in protecting the people's rights to vote.

Prior to the view-exchange meeting, Hasina also held a closed-door meeting with secretaries of her party with the dialogue and the movement on the agenda.

At the view-exchange meeting, Hasina said the electoral reforms demand has turned into a national demand.

The AL chief said if the government appointed Justice KM Hasan as the chief adviser to the caretaker government ignoring their demand, they [the opposition] would do whatever they can.

Branding Hasan and the chief election commissioner (CEC) as BNP partisans, the AL president repeatedly demanded to place a neutral person as the chief to the caretaker government. She also demanded the reconstitution of the EC to ensure a free and fair election in the country.

Referring to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's allegation that the opposition was trying to foil the elections, Hasina said it is not the AL rather BNP wants to foil the elections sensing that they would not be able to rig the elections if the electoral reforms were carried out.

The AL president asked the prime minister why the AL would try to foil the polls since a recent survey revealed her party alone would get 180 seats in the elections.

Over compromise in the dialogue, she said there is no reason to compromise.

She claimed 65 to 70 percent -- in some areas 90 percent -- of the people want the AL to return to power.

"We will generate more electricity to solve the power crisis within a year and establish good governance in the country, if voted to

power again," the former prime minister said adding that they will have research cells on every sector.