KEY WORDS– political crisis, parliamentary elections, fair elections, authoritarian
Bangladesh’s Election Commission has announced its parliamentary elections to be hold on 7 January, 2024. The Election Commissioner announced the elections in a live television broadcast while requesting the parties to discuss and resolve the political crisis.
Currently, the ruling government is of Awami League which supports this decision and consider it as law adhering. However, the opposition parties have rejected the decision. There are several protests ongoing in the country by the opposition parties to make the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed resign.
The leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party BNP or Bangladesh Nationalist Party have said that they have distrust that the government will fairly conduct the elections and have condemned that the decision of election was a unilateral decision and was without reaching to a consensus with opposition parties.
The opposition have accused the Election Commission of being ‘spineless’ as it is taking away the democracy and the right to have fair elections and voting rights of the people.
BNP has announced that they will boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina do not resign and transfer the power to oversee the general elections to a non-partisan and neutral caretaker government.
PM Sheikh Hasina has been continuously accused of ruling the country with ‘an iron fist’ and to be authoritarian and cracking down freedom of speech and unlawfully jailing her critics such as house arresting her rival and BNP’s leader, Khaleda Zia. She has been ruling since past 15 years and it is considered that she will certainly win the elections for the fourth time is the boycott of opposition parties continue.
REFERENCES-
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/bangladesh-sets-elections-for-jan-7-amid-protests/articleshow/105243657.cms?from=mdr
- https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/bangladesh-election-commission-announces-parliamentary-election-amid-ongoing-protests/
WRITTEN BY- SNEHA MADAN, COLLEGE –LLOYD LAW COLLEGE, FIRST SEMESTER LEGAL JOURNALISM INTERN AT LEGAL VIDHIYA.
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