NEW DELHI, 25 September 2007 — Bangladesh’s caretaker government is playing with fire by delaying elections until the end of next year and could lose popular support, the Commonwealth’s most senior official said yesterday.
“They should not take the electorate for granted. Don’t believe that just because they want you now they will want you tomorrow,” Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon told Reuters on a visit to the Indian capital, New Delhi.
“If you lose the confidence of the people, you are in big trouble,” the New Zealander who heads the 53-member group of mostly ex-British Empire nations said in an interview.
Bangladesh has been under a state of emergency since January when an army-backed interim administration took power after months of political violence, canceled elections and banned all political activities.
McKinnon said the government, which enjoyed widespread support when it took power, needed to speed up preparations for elections and keep people properly informed of what it was doing.
“It is pushing a constitutional issue to an absolute extreme to believe that a caretaker government, elected on the basis of about three months, should stay there for a couple of years.” “For Bangladesh to go for a couple of years without a Parliament is asking a lot,” he said, adding this could put the country in “quite a difficult situation.”
Earlier this month Bangladesh’s government lifted a ban on indoor political activities to let parties prepare for elections. However, more than 170 political leaders, including two former prime ministers, Khaleda Zia and Hasina Wajed, have been detained in the authority’s drive to stamp out corruption.
McKinnon said he was concerned about “6,800 political detainees” and another 100,000 people who have been put in detention. “You have got problems there that really have to be resolved today,” he said.
US, EU Have Failed World’s Poor
The United States and Europe have failed the developing world by letting global trade talks drag on and insisting on agricultural subsidies that keep 160 million people in poverty, the Commonwealth chief said.
McKinnon said Europe and the United States bore a great deal of responsibility for that, and could and should do a lot more to dismantle unfair subsidies which kept many millions of people trapped in poverty.
“If an African leader decided to manufacture television sets at five times the world price, he would be laughed off the planet, yet agricultural products can be produced in Europe at five times the world price and no one says it’s a real problem.” Over the years the talks have appeared to break down several times, although trade diplomats have recently expressed guarded optimism after signs the United States could be willing to make concessions over farm subsidies.
McKinnon said the West had let domestic political issues dominate an area of foreign and development policy where they could make a difference, and warned that failure to act would only rebound on rich nations.
“If you take agricultural subsidies off Europe and United States, you lift 160 million people out of poverty tomorrow,” McKinnon said. “If the people of Europe are really worried continually about economic refugees, well you better keep on worrying, because as long as you keep those countries poor by your own subsidies, you are going to keep getting economic refugees,” he told Reuters.
“The same will apply to United States and to some extent to Japan too. They are the players that could make a real difference to the world.”
