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Crisis brewing

Crisis group advises govt to go soft on opposition

Staff Correspondent
Bangladesh could face growing political violence in the lead-up to the 2013 national elections unless the government takes a more conciliatory approach towards the opposition, says a report of the International Crisis Group (ICG).
The Brussels-based organisation says “its latest report Bangladesh: Back to the Future examines how the Awami League government, enthusiastically welcomed
back to power in 2008 as a beacon of democratic reform, has returned to a familiar pattern of arresting opposition leaders, stacking key political institutions and violatinghuman rights."
The scrapping of the caretaker government system despite the main opposition BNP's strong opposition has raised the spectre of political deadlock and prolonged street violence in the lead-up to the polls, says the report of the ICG, a non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts.
'A small window of opportunity remains for reconciliation, but the ball is in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's court”, says Sidney Jones, the Crisis Group's senior adviser onAsia.
“If she does not reach out to the opposition, Bangladesh will be back to the zero-sum politics that so many hoped had ended in2008".
Paul Quinn-Judge, Crisis Group's acting Asia programme director, says, “The capacity to forge a compromise across the parties has not been completely destroyed but it will require much more statesmanship than we've seen thus far”.
“Sheikh Hasina could jump-start the process (of compromise] by releasing detained BNP leaders."
The report says the keys to the public's loss of trust in the government are the AL's continuation of its predecessor's practice of politicising the executive, judiciary and security agencies — critical to
conducting elections - and a rise in political violence.
Sheikh Hasina has not fulfilled her campaign pledge to run a corruption-free administration, it observes.
The caretaker government system is not the BNP's only issue; it is also angry over the possible conviction of Khaleda Zia or her son, Tarique Rahman, in their ongoing court cases, which would bar them from the election, the report observes.
A Western diplomat told the organisation that any attempt to force the courts to convict would be a “serious miscalculation” onAL'spart.
The ICG says the report looks into how popular enthusiasm over the AL's landslide victory in 2008, in the fairest elections in the country's history, has been replaced by disillusionment and fear.
Over the last three years, the government has pressed charges against almost all senior BNP leaders and restricted or banned opposition activity. It has cracked down on the media and politicised the security forces and judiciary, the report mentions.
Support for the BNP has risen in response, and it has regained enough strength to sustain a prolonged fight with the government, raising fears of a political standoff similar to the one in 2006 that led to military intervention, observes the report.
Unless the government moves toward a compromise on the caretaker issue, violence in the streets is likely, it adds.