Talks imperative in poll season, say experts
Staff Reporter, Dhaka
Whenever parliamentary elections are held, the need for dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition and other parties arises. Talks help resolve various contentious issues before the polls. Sometimes talks have been successful, at other times they have failed.
As the 11th parliamentary elections approach, the nation will witness a dialogue between the Awami League (AL)-led 14-Party Alliance and the newly formed Jatiya Oikyafront at Ganabhaban today. The whole nation is eagerly awaiting its outcome. But such talks before elections is nothing new in Bangladesh.
Political and election analysts opined that dialogue between political parties over various issues is always welcome.
About todays dialogue, political analyst Dr Tofail Ahmed told The Independent that such talks could have been arranged much earlier.
I dont think Thursdays dialogue will be fruitful. It may reduce the political excitement to some extent. I think the ruling party will not accept all the proposals of the Oikyafront. There are issues of constitutional amendment which the government would not do. But there are other proposals which can be accepted. There will be rigid negotiation. I dont think it will be a win-win situation because the government will not give much to the Front. A dialogue can be successful if it is cordial. It should not be a matter of ritual only, he said.
The nation witnessed the first successful dialogue among political parties for smooth transition to democracy in 1991, soon after the toppling of the autocratic government of HM Ershad. But there is history of failure of dialogue between the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in October 1995. It rresulted in widespread street violence. Ultimately, a one-sided general election was held in February 1996.
The country again witnessed another political crisis during when the BNP-led government increased the retirement age of the Supreme Court judges through a constitutional amendment in 2004, with the intention to pave the way for then Chief Justice, KM Hasan, to become the chief adviser of the election-time caretaker government.
But the AL-led opposition strongly protested against the constitutional amendment. But the BNP did not pay attention to certain proposals of the AL for reforming the Election Commission and ultimately the political situation deteriorated.
One of the much-talked about dialogue was between representatives of the BNP and the ALAbdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Abdul Jalilwho sat to settle a political impasse, but the dialogue did not bring any positive results.
Even in 2014, another political crisis erupted centring around the election time government. The BNP-led alliance took to the street for restoring the non-partisan government, but the AL rejected the demand, which ultimately led to political boycott of polls by the BNP and some other parties and violence erupted. Political analysts said political parties should look to the past to consider that when political discourses are not peacefully negotiated, it leads to evil consequences.
