Ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League will not be allowed to participate in the elections. This comment was made by a key advisor of the interim government led by Mohammad Yunus on Saturday.
“The elections will be fought only among pro-Bangladesh groups,” said Mahfooz Alam, a top leader of the anti-discrimination movement.
This movement led the mass uprising that led to the fall of Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5 last year and forced her to leave the country.
Addressing a public meeting in Chandpur district, Alam said only former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islam and other “pro-Bangladesh” groups would continue their politics in the country. He said none of them would “form the future government through a fair electoral process.”
“But the Awami League will not be allowed to make a comeback in this country,” said Alam, a minister without portfolio in Chief Advisor Yunus’ administration.
Alam said there would be no elections until “minimal reforms” were implemented and institutions allegedly destroyed by the “fascist Hasina government” were restructured.
Yunus initially appointed Alam as a special assistant in his government, and he later began working as an advisor in the interim cabinet.
At an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last year, Yunus introduced Alam as the “key architect” of a “carefully” designed student-led movement that ousted the previous government.
After August 5, 2024, Awami League is virtually out of the open political scene. Most of its leaders and Hasina’s cabinet members are either in jail on murder and other criminal charges or have fled the country.
Earlier, BNP had said that it was against banning any political party.
It called for elections to be held as soon as possible after minimal reforms and called it an ongoing process.
Another student leader and advisor on information, Naheed Islam, said that if necessary, government advisors would resign from their posts and form a party and contest future elections.