ISAS Briefs

On 25 November the Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh, Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, announced the election schedule for the nation’s 10th Parliament. The polls, he stated, are to be held on 5 January 2014. He urged calm on both contending sides, the Awami League (AL)-led government of Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led opposition of Khaleda Zia. The bitterness of their rivalry has been legendary. The politicians’ disregard for his appeal was instantaneous. The BNP which had earlier warned that it would react to such an announcement with a siege of the capital Dhaka was true to its word. So was the government which had vowed to put down any unruly behaviour with an iron hand. The unsurprising result was a spiralling violence with no end to it in sight. In this, the religious right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami was on hand, fighting with its back to the wall as many of its leaders are in condemned cells, awaiting execution ordered by the war-crimes trial court.