Election unrest grips Bangladesh

At least 400 people were injured this week and over 2,000 arrested as violent protests brought much of Bangladesh to a standstill. In the capital, Dhaka, troops were deployed and police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas to disperse thousands of stone-throwing protesters, many of them armed with sticks. The unrest began after 19 opposition parties lead by the powerful Awami League announced a boycott of the national elections to be held later this month, claiming interference by the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the neutral transitional government charged by Bangladesh's constitution with delivering fair elections. About 5,000 protesters tried to overrun barbed-wire barricades manned by police in central Dhaka on Jan. 8 as the opposition parties tried to enforce a shutdown of the capital as part of a general strike to pressure the government to delay the vote until election reforms can be adopted. The demonstrators involved in clashes with police were enforcing a three-day transport blockade, and succeeded in stopping transport across the country. Protesters halted trains by squatting on railroads in several places outside Dhaka, railway officials said on condition of anonymity. At Savar, some 15 miles from Dhaka, protesters attacked cars whose drivers were trying to ignore the blockade. Scores of protesters were injured by police and army baton-charges throughout the protests. The Associated Press said one of its photographers had seen a dozen police officers beating a single protester. "I'll die, please don't beat me, I'll die," the man said. The protesters were said to have remained defiant, with one group attacking police in an effort to free others who had been detained. The clashes across Dhaka left at least 300 people injured, including several policemen, the United News of Bangladesh news agency reported. Police officials wouldn't confirm or deny the figures. Schools and businesses remained closed to avoid being caught in the violence. At least 100 people, including police, were injured in similar clashes across the capital on Jan. 7, the first day of protests that cut the city off from rest of the country, Dhaka newspapers reported. Police reportedly detained about 1,500 activists ahead of the unrest in an attempt to preempt a nationwide general strike. Protesters accuse current President Iajuddin Ahmed's interim government, in charge of organizing the elections, of favoring their opponents, a four-party coalition led by former BNP Prime Minister Khaleda Zia who stepped down as prime minister in October after completing a five-year-term in office. Backing the move to push the polls through is the Jamaat-e-Islami, BNP's fundamentalist ally. Raging against them is the coalition led by the Awami League, headed by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, that is determined to allow the elections to be held only under a constitutionally required neutral caretaker government and after the installation of a new Election Commission that is ready to revise allegedly rigged electoral rolls. Awami League spokesman Abdul Jalil said: "We will not accept farcical elections. We will shut down the country for weeks if the government goes ahead with holding the elections." The Awali League's main demand is that the government use an updated version of the 2000 voter register, and not one created over the past few years. The alliance wants the vote delayed until electoral reforms are complete, including the revision of a voter list. Following the call for a poll boycott, 2,370 candidates, mostly of the Awami League and its allies, have withdrawn their candidatures leaving the field wide open to the BNP-led alliance and independent candidates in the race for the 300 seats in the national parliament. "Unless the election is credible to all, political unrest will continue, economic growth will be held back," Muzaffer Ahmed, a retired professor of economics of Dhaka University, told IPS. "The political culture has to be pro-people and the politicians must have an attitude of rendering service to the people instead of only fighting for power," said the professor, who now heads the Bangladesh chapter of the Berlin-based global corruption watchdog Transparency International. Poll-related protests and blockades since October have resulted in the deaths of at least 35 people. The BNP claimed earlier victories in February 1996 but the government it formed lasted only a few weeks and was forced to step down amid violent street demonstrations.