BARELY nine weeks before Bangladesh holds a long-awaited parliament election, the military-backed interim government is under pressure to tie all the loose ends for a smooth return to democracy, analysts say. The election is due on December 18 and the Election Commission said it would announce in early November schedules including dates for filing and withdrawing nominations. The election will cap the interim administration's two years in power after taking office in January 2007 following months of political violence. The interim authority cancelled an election planned for January last year, imposed an indefinite state of emergency and detained dozens of key politicians, including two former prime ministers, for alleged corruption. Generally, Bangladeshis welcomed the moves, hoping the country's perennially corrupt politics would be cleaned up and they would be ushered to democracy through an honest vote. After the schedules are announced, political parties would have just over a month to pick candidates and convince the voters they are the best choices. Meanwhile the government and poll officials have their own long lists of to-dos, including registration of parties seeking to contest the vote, checking out their profiles to ensure they are not corrupt or not involved in war crimes, and considering whether to end the emergency state. “We are heading into a more critical time and possibly more violence in case all major parties do not take part in the polls,” a senior government official said on Thursday. “There are too many tasks to be finished, but the time is running out fast,” he said, requesting not to be identified. The parties have until Oct. 15 to apply for registration but so far only the Awami League led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has collected application forms from the commission. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of another ex-prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, is still unwilling to register, saying the commission is trying to put parties “unnecessarily in a tight frame”. Parties represented in past parliaments but having no record of people convicted of war crimes in their fold would be easily registered. The commission has asked parties to submit a draft constitution promising to ensure internal democracy and ratify them soon, and also to give women a larger share in the party's rural leadership. But the commission also wants political parties to shed their labour, youth and student fronts, and abolish overseas units – which both the BNP and Awami League have refused to do. Unless these issues are settled and the emergency ended, the BNP says it will not participate in the election. The Awami League also demands an early end to the emergency. The parties want Hasina, now on medical parole in the United States, and Khaleda now on bail, granted permanent freedom and all charges against them quashed. Otherwise, the BNP and Awami League – the country's biggest parties which took turns in power over the past 15 years – may boycott the polls. Without them the election will not be peaceful or credible, analysts and officials said. The Awami League accuses BNP's political ally and partner in a previous government, Jamaat-e-Islami, of having opposed Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan, and of helping the Pakistani Army in war-time acts of genocide. The Jamaat and BNP deny the charges, and say their critics are trying to belittle Khaleda's image in the polls by playing the “misleading Jamaat card.” Khaleda and Hasina are likely top contenders in the coming election. – Reuters __
