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Caretaker, Other Issues

Allies drifting away from AL

Ruling party sits with its partners today to bridge the gap

Hasan Jahid Tusher
Distance between ruling Awami League and its grand alliance partners has been widening over the last few months centring a set of issues including the much talked about interim administration for holding the next parliamentary election.
The gap between AL and its partners in the 14-party coalition became evident and was discussed in the political circle after most components of the coalition recently sat together in a meeting
excludingAL.
A number of AL's 14-party partners and Jatiya Party (JP) of the grand alliance feel that the issue of the process of holding the next general election must be resolved to avoid political uncertainty and chaos.
Samyabadi Dal is the only 14-party component which is still faithfully following the lead of ruling AL on the issue. AL is still undecided about the process of holding the next election and thinks that there is still time to discuss the matter of an interim government.
Against such a backdrop, the 14-party coalition is scheduled to sit today in AL President Sheikh Hasina's political office in Dhanmondi to discuss the latest political situation of the country.
On Thursday, most of the 14-party components, except AL and Samyabadi Dal, sat together and reached a conclusion that the next parliamentary election must be held under an interim government formed through a consensus.
The polls should be held neither under a partisan government nor under a caretaker government, observed the coalition leaders at that meeting.
The coalition leaders and the JP high command feel that AL has been taking decisions on most of the crucial matters alone, without discussing with them, which they said gave them a sense of "abandonment".
On the other hand, AL insiders said leaders of the 14-party coalition and the grand alliance might be upset because some of them did not get to be ministers, and that was the reason why they were talking about widening gaps.
JP Secretary General Ruhul Amin Hawlader told The Daily Star that a gap might have been formed between AL and
JR the two major political parties of the grand alliance.
"We had drawn the attention of the prime minister categorically to take measures to reduce the gap, but she has failed to take any step so far," said the JP leader adding that they hoped there was still time to implement the common principles of the grand alliance.
Sources within the party said JP Chairman HM Ershad was under huge pressure from his party colleagues to quit the grand alliance, as they felt AL had not fulfilled its pledges to JR
Last week several hundred JP leaders, at a meeting, urged Ershad to quit the grand alliance. In response he told them that he would take the appropriate decision when the time came.
JP insiders said AL took many decisions without consulting them. For example, AL-led 14-party coalition was going to form human chains in the districts and the capital demanding immediate trial of war criminals, and building of public opinion in favour of the trials, but the ruling party did not even bother to talk to JP in this regard, said the JP secretary general.
Ruhul said the next general election must be held based on a consensus among all political parties since the
caretaker government system was nullified.
Referring to the constitu-tion amendment that scrapped the non-party caretaker government system, he said the constitution was made for the people and it could be further amended for the interest of the country, its people, and for continuation of democracy.
Workers' Party leader Bimal Biswas said whether AL made some of the 14-party leaders ministers or not had no bearing on the distance that had been created between the ruling party and its coalition partners. He hoped that the gap could be reduced through discussions.
Bimal said although there might be some differences of opinions on some matters between AL and its 14-party partners, they all were united in favour of the trials of war criminals, and the trials of August 21 grenade attack and 10 trucks load of arms smugglingcases.
He said it would be better if there was a solution right now regarding the process of holding the next general election.
AL Acting General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said there was still much time to discuss the issue of the interim government, and there was no reason for a widening gap in the grand alliance over the matter.