In Bangladesh, State of Emergency and Election Delay
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: January 12, 2007

NEW DELHI, Jan. 11 — The president of Bangladesh declared a state of emergency on Thursday evening, suspending certain fundamental rights, imposing a nighttime curfew, and effectively postponing elections that were scheduled to be held in less than two weeks. He then resigned as the chief of the caretaker government entrusted to run the vote.

An alliance of political parties had promised to boycott the elections, scheduled for Jan. 22. And in the past couple of days, as the nation of 140 million people sank deeper into political violence, virtually all international backing for the vote fell away.

The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, said in a televised address in Dhaka on Thursday night that it would be impossible to hold elections that would be acceptable to all parties by the scheduled date. He referred specifically to the contention that the voters’ list had been stuffed with 14 million fake names, one of the main grounds for the boycott.

“It’s not possible to hold the elections on schedule,” Mr. Ahmed said, according to The Associated Press. “We need a flawless voter list to ensure that the elections are free, fair and credible.”

Mr. Ahmed, who will retain the largely ceremonial presidency, said he would appoint an advisory council to conduct the elections at an unspecified date. The state news agency reported that he saw his resignation as being “essential to keep the economy going and maintain law and order.”

He had earlier insisted that the Constitution permitted no postponement of the elections.

Emergency rule paves the way for the army to take control of law and order and imposes new restrictions on the news media, measures that have not been applied in Bangladesh since the restoration of democracy 16 years ago.

The emergency declaration came a day after the United Nations suspended technical support for the coming elections, saying that they would not be “considered credible or legitimate.” Two teams of American election observers, as well as one that was to be dispatched by the European Union, also pulled out.

This week, an alliance of political parties, led by the former opposition Awami League, which had already said it would boycott the elections, announced that they would “resist,” which most Bangladeshis understood to be a barely concealed threat of violence.

The British Foreign Office issued a statement on Thursday urging both parties to compromise in an effort to produce elections that could be seen as “credible, peaceful and universally accepted.” Clashes between the police and political activists in recent days presaged further violence in the days before the elections.

The United Nations said in a statement on Wednesday, “The United Nations is concerned that Bangladesh’s democratic advances and international standing will be affected if the current crisis continues.”

The country’s two main leaders, Sheik Hasina Wazed, leader of the Awami League, and Khaleda Zia, both former prime ministers, have been battling each other for power since 1991, when they and their supporters restored democracy after nine years of military rule. Since then, they have fought bitterly for control of the government and together they have given their country a singular reputation for political violence.

Mrs. Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party stepped down from power last October, when an interim caretaker government took over, with responsibility for running the elections.

The election process then became the heart of the controversy. Sheik Hasina’s party accused Mrs. Zia’s party of having stacked the election commission with partisans and stuffed the voter list with fake names. It also accused President Ahmed of being biased in favor of Mrs. Zia’s alliance. Mrs. Zia’s party, in turn, insisted that the elections could not be postponed, because the Constitution stipulated that they be held within 90 days of an interim government taking over.

Before the emergency order on Thursday, some of Mr. Ahmed’s critics pressed him to be flexible and, for the sake of neutrality, to refer the matter to the Supreme Court. “The Constitution is not the Koran in that it can’t be changed,” Syed Manzur Elahi, a prominent businessman and a member of two previous caretaker governments, said by telephone Thursday afternoon from Dhaka, the capital.

He said he feared for his country’s standing in the world. “As it is, we have an image problem,” he added. “This will multiply the problem.”

The most dire warning came from the United Nations, which said Wednesday that any moves toward military rule could cost Bangladesh its handsome earnings from participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Bangladesh regularly contributes hefty numbers of troops.

The statement read: “Should the 22 January parliamentary elections proceed without participation of all major political parties, deployment of the armed forces in support of the election process raises questions. This may have implications for Bangladesh’s future role in U.N. peacekeeping operations.”

Julfikar Ali Manik contributed reporting from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/world/asia/12bangladesh.html?_r=1&oref=slogin