Don't call me, I will call you

We are entering interesting times here in Bangladesh. We just hit an important date: October 25th. Political crisis is mounting over the next general election, which must be completed between October 25, 2013 and January 24, 2014. Prior to the incumbent changing the Constitution, it was necessary for the government in Dhaka to resign and form a non-party interim government to run the national election.

The Prime Minister Hasina has made crystal clear she would not go for a caretaker government and declared that the upcoming elections would be held under her Awami League led incumbent government as the Constitutional amendment had already scrapped the caretaker or interim government.

However, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party maintains its demand that the government should bring a neutral government and that the present Parliament must be dissolved before the general election.

So what do we have here? A huge political impasse! Not to worry, Hasina promised she would call the opposition leader Khaleda Zia to settle the issue. For days everybody was holding their breath, hoping the ladies would get together and sort it out.

In the breaking news today: "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called Opposition leader Khaleda Zia this afternoon to invite her to a dialogue over polls-time government but failed to reach. The prime minister called the opposition leader at her red phone at 1:15pm but could not talk with her as no-one picked up the phone for half an hour."

Shucks, we missed a huge opportunity. But, wait, there is another breaking news now:

"BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will call Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at 6:00pm today".

So there is still hope after all! Once we get done phone tagging.

Sister, let's sit down and talk!

Last week was not one to fondly remember. It started out with very sad tragedy that hit our small Embassy community like a brick wall. We are still mourning as a result. Then it came the Savar collapse. It seems like bad news just would never stop coming!

And yet today, there is hope again. The Prime minister Sheikh Hasina invited the opposition leader, the BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to sit down for a dialogue to resolve the current political impasse of the country.

Now for an outsider to Bangladesh this would be like such a normal thing. What is so ordinary about the two leading political sitting down to talk about the upcoming elections?

Having been here for three months now I realize this is a potentially major breakthrough. With less than a year left for the next elections to be held as per the Constitution, there is still no agreement on how to do that. So far, the ruling Awami League (AL) and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been unwilling to hold a dialogue, even though the United Nations and all foreign countries have pleaded for talks.

The is a lot of bad blood between these two ladies and it is a foregone conclusion that until and unless they start talking to each other no headway would be made in holding the next elections.Any future parliamentary election, boycotted by any major party, will lose its credibility and therefore, will not be acceptable. Add in the mix the fact that not a single election in independent Bangladesh was ever accepted by all the parties, winners and losers alike, as free and fair. And you are coming up with the perfect political tsunami in the Bangladeshi politics.


I will come back to talk about the two iron ladies in another post, but for now i will just take my piece of good news. After all, we all need a little hope!