Issue of free election must be resolved now or face mass upsurge

– Mainul Hosein

DMP Chief Khandakar Golam Faruk wanted 23 points to be satisfied for maintaining peace and order during BNP’s political programme. But one point of accepting free election should have been enough for avoiding the necessity of war-like preparation of the police.

The government has amended the Constitution to deny our people, meaning all of us, free election so that the government can stay in power by eliminating the opposition by means of oppression and repression.

To deny people the right to vote is not party politics. By it, every citizen is affected. The whole democratic Constitution is meaningless if the people are denied to change the government peacefully through free election.

Awami League knows it best that if they cannot rig the coming parliamentary election with the help of the government machinery, the result will be devastating for the government party.

So the election will not be free come what may. The government depends on state agencies to be as oppressive as it can in the style of communist countries.

It is by the fraudulent constitutional amendment that the election time non-party caretaker government has been abolished. In addition, the parliament will also not be dissolved for the parliamentary election. What more is necessary to be convinced how desperate the government is in denying the people, meaning all of us, free election.

Nowhere under the parliamentary system the elected government remains in power during the election period.

It is also not to be found that the parliamentary election is held without dissolving the parliament. There should be some limits for the greed of power.

Now we are told how sacred is the Constitution and the government will not deviate from the Constitution to make the election free and fair. In fact, the Awami League government is famous for disregarding the democratic Constitution.

In 1975 Awami League established BAKSAL revolutionary government to remain in power for life.

This time the government wants the BAKSAL way of denying democracy not by overthrowing the whole Constitution but by discarding free election under a non-party election-time caretaker government.

The issue of free election depending on farcical constitutional amendment brought about by the government unilaterally should be resolved now.

The government’s insistence on holding the election in terms of the Constitution means the fraudulently amended constitution eliminating the need of election time impartial caretaker government. It is insisted the election has to be held under the sitting government.

We hope, the government is not so blind as not to see the warning message conveyed by yesterday’s huge public gathering at the call of BNP.

The government will be well-advised to shun the oppressive ways to risk people’s uprising. The government should be political for a political solution and discard the fraudulent constitutional amendment to kill democracy.