The BNP is taking an increasingly strident and unyielding line against the governing Awami League. Quite apart from boycotting Parliament and thereby refusing to participate in governance, the opposition BNP is threatening an oust-government movement.
This move comes after an the assassination of a leader of the youth group affiliated with the BNP. Though, the party demanded an investigation and a immediate trial, BNP leaders also announced a city-wide program of events and protests in the capital city, Dhaka over three days that will demonstrate BNP grass-roots solidarity.
As the Daily Star reports:
“Addressing the protest rally [party leader] Dr Khandaker Mosharraf said, “A fit reply to government’s all repressions and killings to curb the opposition will be given through ousting the present Baksal government wearing the guise of democracy through tough movement uniting all nationalist and patriotic forces under the leadership of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.”
Dr, Mosharraf a former minister under the BNP goverment said “Awami League had tried to remain in power permanently through establishing one-party Baksal and curbing opposition by killing and repression, but they had failed.”
Dr. Mosharraf is, of course, alluding to one-party autocratic rule under the former leader of the Awami League and assassinated President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The BNP is in effect claiming–with cause, it seems to believe–that the Awami League has risen to its own imperial identity and that its governance agenda is associated to that identity.
This seems to quick a move and too close to cheap partisan dogma. The assassination of a politica leader warrants investigation and to the extent this is true, the sitting government should proceed in that fashion. To claim that the whole political agenda–some of which is surely welfare increasing– is riven with autocratic hubris is a contemptible suggestion.