The ruling Awami League’s (AL’s) general secretary and minister for road transport and bridges, Obaidul Quader, yesterday expressed his lack of conviction about the success of the recently started dialogue between the political parties and President Abdul Hamid regarding the formation of the Election Commission (EC).
The AL general secretary said the success of the President’s talks with the political parties would depend upon the positive attitude of the political parties’ chiefs. If their thinking is not constructive, the ongoing dialogues with the President would not be fruitful, he claimed.
“The honourable President is our guardian. He is very much a gentleman, so I hope he will discharge his duty properly. We should accept his decision about the formation of the new Election Commission to oversee the next general elections,” he said in a discussion with the party’s associate body, the Awami Swechhasebak League, at the party’s central office at Bangabandhu Avenue in the city.
The President's talks with political parties began with the major political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), yesterday, amidst hopes of forming a stronger and more impartial election commission to oversee the 2019 general elections.
Other political parties, including Jatiya Party and LDP, will meet the President on separate scheduled dates.
Quader said previous talks between BNP and the former president, the late Zillur Rahman, had not been successful due to the unbending attitude of BNP. If the party (the BNP) remains rigid on its own stance again, talks with President Abdul Hamid would not be fruitful, he added.
“Even after the previous talks that failed, I welcome the BNP and hope that good sense prevails upon the party’s leaders. But they should join the dialogue with an open mind. Had they visited Ganobhaban before the 5 January elections at the invitation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the political history of Bangladesh would have been different,” he said.
Criticising the BNP for its role in the past, the senior AL leader also said that the BNP does not know what it actually wants. “Does the party want to come to power? Then it will have to follow the democratic path. Those who engage in the politics of violence in a bid to come to power will ultimately lose the people’s mandate,” he added. The organisation’s president, Mollah Mohammad Abu Kawsar, presided over the discussion, which was organised on the occasion of Victory Day.