DHAKA, 14 January 2007 — Five people from different walks of life were sworn in as members of Bangladesh’s new interim government yesterday, after a bitter fight between the two major political parties led to the cancellation of the January elections and imposition of emergency in the country.
Five members of the 10-member advisory council took the oath in a ceremony shown live on state-run television at the presidential palace in Dhaka. The remaining members of the non-party council were due to be appointed over the next few days. The five included a newspaper owner, two leading businesspeople, a former chairman of the Security Exchange Commission, and a former anti-corruption commission official.
“We are taking the oath that we will faithfully serve the duty of the adviser of the caretaker government as per the law,” they said. The authorities had earlier lifted a curfew imposed two days ago as part of the emergency but the capital Dhaka’s streets remained almost deserted.
Only cycle rickshaws, a few buses and cars were on the roads, even though yesterday was a normal working day.
The main opposition Awami League had threatened to resume protests today but called them off after their demand for the cancellation of elections due later in January was met. Former Bangladesh central bank Governor Fakhruddin Ahmed, regarded by political commentators as a neutral figure, was sworn in as caretaker chief at a ceremony Friday.
He replaced the embattled President Iajuddin Ahmed, who stepped aside the previous day. The independent Daily Star newspaper described Ahmed as a man of “personal integrity” with an illustrious career behind him and said his appointment should generate the confidence needed to stage the elections.
“It is up to him now to prove his mettle in the face of the daunting challenges that the job entails,” said the top English-language circulation daily.
The business community, meanwhile, welcomed the state of emergency as a possible end to the disruption that has affected Bangladesh recently. “Over the past six months, political instability has cost us millions of dollars in export orders. Our exports were on the brink of disaster,” said S.M. Fazlul Haque, the president of the country’s biggest export group.
