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Election landslide holds dangers for Bangladesh: analysts
Dhaka (AFP) Dec 30, 2008 The landslide victory for the Awami League in Bangladesh's elections has raised fears of a power imbalance and a return to the dysfunctional politics that prompted the army's intervention two years ago. The centre-left party, led by ex-premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed, won at least 229 seats of a possible 300 in Monday's vote, the first in the impoverished country since 2001. Such a hefty majority has not been seen since the 1973 elections when Sheikh Hasina's father -- Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had spearheaded Bangladesh's independence struggle -- won control of the newly-independent nation. "There is a danger with any government that has an absolute majority," said Manzoor Hasan, director of BRAC University's Institute of Governance Studies in Dhaka. "The possibility is that it will steamroll the opposition and do whatever it wants to do," he added. Sheikh Hasina's rival, Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which won the 2001 election by a huge margin, garnered less than 10 percent of seats in the vote. Before the army-backed interim government was installed in January 2007, the two women -- known as the battling begums for their mutual animosity -- had ruled the nation alternately for 17 years. Hasan said the next two days would reveal whether the BNP will accept the humiliating election results. He said the huge swing to the Awami League came down to the high number of first time voters, and the party's vow to bring to court people accused of war crimes during the country's liberation struggle from Pakistan. The Awami League has long campaigned to put on trial those who sided with Pakistan during the bloody nine-month 1971 war, but never previously held a big enough majority to force the issue. Sheikh Hasina's father, mother and most of her family were assassinated by pro-Pakistan militants in 1975. Dhaka University political science professor Ataur Rahman said the nationalist, pro-Islamic BNP had taken a direct hit for its corruption-tainted performance in the last elected government. "It's a huge backlash against the BNP leadership," he said, but he also warned Bangladesh faced "a very unbalanced start to our new democratic journey." "People have put too much trust in the Awami League-led alliance, handing them a lot of power which could make them autocratic," he said. Salahuddin Aminuzzaman, an independent political analyst and also a Dhaka University professor, agreed that the 1971 independence war remained a key vote winner for the Awami League. "The publicity about war crimes cost BNP and its allies votes," he said. He said Sheikh Hasina's promise to lower spiralling inflation, which has been above ten percent for much of 2008, had also helped it to win votes. The caretaker regime, which came to power after months of political violence forced the president to cancel elections and impose a state of emergency, made efforts to shake up the system. It even jailed both Sheikh Hasina and Zia for corruption, but agreed to release them to contest the election. Related Links Democracy in the 21st century at TerraDaily.com
Walker's World: A British election?
London (UPI) Dec 24, 2008 This may be Gordon Brown's last Christmas in Downing Street, the home of Britain's prime ministers. If so, it will be more like suicide than murder, more the result of Brown's own deliberate electoral gamble than a party coup against him. |
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