Emergency rule may be relaxed if required: Bangla govt

Dhaka, Oct 9 (PTI) As former Premier Khaleda Zia's party
demanded withdrawal of emergency rule calling it an obstacle
to the planned December polls, Bangladesh's military-backed
caretaker government has said the tough measure could be
relaxed further if required.

"If necessary, the state of emergency will be relaxed
further through discussion with the political parties," Chief
Adviser of the interim government Fakhruddin Ahmed told a
delegation of British Parliamentarians.

Ahmed said emergency rule was part of Bangladesh's
Constitution, not any extra-constitutional measure and "it is
not affecting the common people," according to his spokesman.

His comments came as Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(B.N.P.) said the emergency must be lifted before the general
elections while her archrival ex-premier Sheikh Hasina's Awami
League gave a compromise formula suggesting incorporation of
'required' provisions of the emergency rule in ordinary law to
ensure participation of all parties in the polls.

The interim government chief said some provisions of the
tough Emergency Power Rules (E.P.R.) were relaxed for
electioneering before the local government elections in August
while "those polls were held very fairly and peacefully and
nobody did make any complaint."

A senior adviser of the interim Cabinet earlier this week
said the government wanted to continue with the Emergency
Power Rules keeping the issue of the security of women and
minority community in mind.

"Violence, intimidation and vote buying are election time
reality in Bangladesh," Education Adviser of the interim
cabinet Hossain Zillur Rahman told newsmen after a meeting
with four fellow advisers two days ago.

The planned general elections appeared to have thrown
fresh challenges as the two major parties took opposing stance
on the recently amended crucial election law, Representation
of People Order (R.P.O.).

The B.N.P. on Tuesday renewed its demand for staging the
December 18 polls under the previous law scrapping the
amended one while Awami League decided to carry out a drastic
reform to comply with the new R.P.O. disbanding the party's
front organisation and overseas units and clipping its chief's
absolute power to facilitate intra-party democracy as demanded
by the new law.

"We want to participate in the elections but a number of
provisions in the amended RPO including the mandatory
registration of parties are contrary to holding of free and
fair elections," B.N.P. Secretary General Khondokar Delwar
Hossain said.

In a related development, the independent election
commission vowed not to extend the October 15 deadline for the
registration of political parties as required by the new
R.P.O. as it was enacted "in line with several rounds of
consultations with the political parties."

The R.P.O. was enacted last month as part of a massive
reform campaign of the interim administration.

The amended R.P.O. also allowed voters to cast no-vote in
ballot saying if 50 percent of votes are no-votes then the
constituency would have to go for a re-election while the law
sought to ensure exercise of intra-party or in-house democracy
to be qualified for polls, eight-point disclosures of
contenders and submission of their election expenditure
statements. PTI AR