Bangladesh's former prime minister Sheikh Hasina formally launched on Thursday her campaign for a Dec. 29 parliamentary election that aims at bringing the South Asian country of 140 million people back to democracy. Bangladesh has been under an army-backed interim government for nearly two years, since political violence led to the cancellation of an election in January 2007. Separately, the Jatiya Party of former ruler president Hossain Mohammad Ershad announced formation of a “grand alliance” with Hasina's Awami League and some smaller parties. The announcement came a day after Ershad had said there would be no alliance with the Awami League, but on Thursday he said the League had agreed to leave 49 seats of the 300-seat parliament for the Jatiya Party's nominees to contest.