Bangladesh’s ruling party celebrates election win anniversary, opposition marks black day

by Naim-Ul-Karim
DHAKA, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) — Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Bangladesh Awami League party kicked off celebrations Tuesday for its 2nd anniversary in power, lauding its accomplishments while the largest opposition accused it of monopolizing authority.
Awami League has been observing Jan. 5, 2014 parliament poll day, as “victory day for democracy,” as they did last year, but ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) marked it as the “black day for democracy.”
Through the 10th parliamentary elections in 2014, Awami League returned to power for a second straight term.
Some 21 opposition parties, including Zia’s BNP, boycotted the elections over Hasina’s refusal to introduce a non-party interim government to oversee the elections.
For the past years the BNP and its allies have been calling on the government of Hasina to arrange an early election under a non-party government.
Three-month-long violence has left scores of people dead and hundreds injured as anti-government protesters battled with law enforcers, attacked rivals, torched vehicles and targeted railway.
In a major political development, the Bangladeshi government on Monday allowed the BNP to hold rally in capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.
Authorities in Dhaka and Chittagong, 242 km southeast of the capital city, also allowed the Awami League to hold rallies with their own narratives to mark the second anniversary of the polls.
Through Tuesday’s rallies in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, the BNP has urged the government to hold a free, fair and inclusive general election as early as possible,
Sources said BNP Chairperson Zia, who is slated to address a rally in Dhaka later Tuesday, was very unlikely to announce any protest program to press her alliance’s demand for an early election under a non-party government.
Less than a mile away from Zia’s rally venue, thousands of leaders, activists and supporters of Awami League also converged in the city streets in a huge colourful procession marking the 2nd anniversary of its return to power.
The ruling party’s leaders and activists have started gathering for two separate rallies in the capital.
Tension escalated in Dhaka as both the major parties announced rallies on the same day.  Enditem