Editorial Desk :
Let the US and other friendly countries who want to help us to have free and fair election insist on fulfilling one condition, and that is, the election under the sitting government continuing in power during the election time is not acceptable.
If the US and others insist on this one point, that will be enough for removing the main hurdle in the way of conducting free and transparent election in Bangladesh. The purpose of a free election is to ensure that the government would be chosen by the people.
The US Under Secretary Victoria Nuland reiterated her government’s insistence on the significance of ensuring elections in Bangladesh in a free and fair atmosphere.
She further emphasised the commitment of the US government to advocate the human rights, labour rights and freedom of expression during the ninth US-Bangladesh Dialogue held in Washington on Wednesday.
The Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Masud Bin Momen briefed about the various measures taken by the Election Commission to pave the way for holding free and fair elections.
If the Election Commission was honest and sincere to make the next general elections free and fair, then it should have admitted frankly that, with the sitting government in power during election time, the Commission would not be able to ensure free election.
The Commission has not responded to the demand made by the political parties and intelligentsia about the need of the present sitting government to resign for creating an atmosphere for holding a free and fair election and, to make it possible, the election must be held by under a non-party caretaker government as once agreed upon by all the parties and the Constitution was amended to that effect.
It was Awami League that played the leading role at that time insisting that such a non-party government was “imperative” for a free and fair election.
Once in power, Awami League amended Constitution unilaterally to hold elections under the sitting government. There is no parliamentary democracy in the world where election takes place without dissolving the parliament and under the sitting government continuing in power during the election time.
Bangladesh has been facing serious conspiracy since its birth so that democracy cannot take its roots here by denying people their right to choose their own government through free election.
So, the right thing to do is to insist that the sitting government must resign for election to be free. That practice is followed in parliamentary democracies everywhere.
We have been saddled with the system of controlling election that has made conducting free and fair election impossible. Let Awami League contest the election under a neutral government and prove its respect for democracy.
