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US wants credible polls

Biswal holds talks with PM, Khaleda

Staff Correspondent
US Assistant Secretary' of State Nisha Desai Biswal yesterday met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia as part of the US government's effort to engage the two rivals in talks and end the political stalemate.
The visiting US official did not make any formal comments
after meeting the two but she was expected to make a statement about her parleys during a press briefing this afternoon.
Biswal told the two leaders that the US wants a free, fair and credible election in Bangladesh for stronger democratic rule, stability and socio-economic development in the days ahead.
In response, Hasina conveyed to Biswal her government's firm determination to have a free, fair and credible election, said the premier's Deputy Press Secretary' Bijan
Lal Dev after the meeting between Biswal and Hasina at Gono Bhaban.
He told newsmen that Hasina hoped the opposition would take part in the election where the people would exercise their franchise freely.
Hasina also referred to her government's success in holding 5,828 free and fair elections to local government bodies.
"Each of those elections were free, fair, peaceful and neutral and the government did not intervene in any activities of the Election Commission," Bijan quoted Hasina as saying to the US official.
During the almost 90-minute meeting between Biswal and Khaleda at Khaleda's Gulshan office yesterday evening, the US official told the opposition leader that the people of Bangladesh, not the outsiders, who would decide how the next election
FROM PAGE 1 would be held.
After the meeting, BNP Vice-Chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury briefed newsmen on the meeting.
He said Khaleda told Biswal that her party' BNP was looking for a solution through dialogue and that was what people wanted.
Mobin said during the meeting Biswal praised highly of Khaleda’s speech delivered on October 21 at a press conference. Biswal termed the speech path-showing with a future outline to further strengthen democracy in Bangladesh, Mobin claimed.
Khaleda told Biswal that people did not want the next election to be held under a partisan government and that her party firmly' believes a credible election was not possible under such administration.
She told the US official that people want election under non-party and neutral government, which was part of the constitution, and that the apex court had said the next two elections could be held under a non-party government.
On her arrival in Dhaka Saturday from Japan, Biswal had a series of meetings, including with Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, the International Labour Organisation, Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, and attended a reception organised by the US embassy in her honour.
At the meetings with Prof Yunus and readymade garment businessmen, she praised Bangladesh's economic advancement and expressed her government's wish for continuation of this trend.
Biswal's visit was against the backdrop of growing political violence with the ruling Awami League and the main opposition BNP putting their foot down on the polls-time government issue.
Diplomatic efforts, including UN chief's phone calls to Hasina and Khaleda and the US secretary of state's letters to the two leaders, were yet to yield any result.