B'desh parties shift stance on election issue

Dhaka, Oct 20 (PTI) Emergency-ruled Bangladesh's two
major political parties shifted their stance overnight with
ex-premier Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (B.N.P.)
apparently softening and her arch rival Sheikh Hasina's Awami
League taking a tougher position on the election issue.

Zia's B.N.P. and its key partner Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami
hurriedly brought several changes in their party constitutions
for the mandatory registration at the last minute later today
under the revised election law.

But visibly deviating from an earlier stand, Awami League
(A.L.) leaders Sunday said that they would not take part in
the forthcoming December 18 elections unless the state of
emergency was withdrawn and the "false graft charges" against
Hasina were withdrawn for her "permanent" release.

"We've had whatever changes we needed for in our
constitution to get registered with the Election Commission,"
B.N.P. secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain told
reporters after emerging from a party meeting last night.

Jamaat too earlier carried out some major changes in
its charter to meet the criteria for registration under the
new Representation of People Order (R.P.O.), amended as part
of a massive electoral reform.

B.N.P. and Jamaat leaders said they were set to apply
for the registration Monday on the last day of the extended
election commission deadline. But A.L.'s acting president
Zillur Rahman Sunday said that "in no circumstances we will
take part in any election without Sheikh Hasina and amid the
state of emergency".

"Democracy cannot be established under the state of
emergency and the elections cannot be free, fair and normal,"
he said though his party earlier applied for the registration
amending the party constitution in line with the new RPO.