DHAKA, 21 September 2006 — Thousands of opposition supporters blockaded the Bangladesh capital yesterday as part of a growing campaign to force electoral reforms before the next general election, police and officials said.
The rail and road blockade was called by a 14-party opposition alliance led by the left-leaning Awami League party.
Activists chanting “no reforms, no elections” staged protests on main routes out of Dhaka cutting transport links with the south and west of the country, said Akhtaruzzaman, the police officer in charge at Savar junction on the outskirts of Dhaka.
Around 500 protesters also blocked the main railway station at Tongi, 40 kilometers north of the capital, halting train services to and from the city, Bangladesh Railway spokesman Shafiqul Alam Khan told AFP.
Routes linking other main cities were also disrupted with a number of small clashes between police and protesters, the private ATN Bangla television channel reported.
Most private vehicles stayed off the roads in Dhaka and the city’s police department told AFP it had deployed more than 9,500 police and paramilitaries at bus and railway stations.
The six-hour blockade, which started at dawn, was the latest in a string of strikes and protests staged over the past 15 months to press the demands of the opposition parties ahead of the polls scheduled for January.
The opposition alliance is demanding that the government fires key election commission officials and the head of the non-party caretaker government, which will oversee the general elections.
It accuses all the officials of being pro-government and says that free and fair elections cannot take place under their stewardship.
The group also says the election commission has drawn up a voter list that includes millions of ghost names and excludes many opposition supporters.
Awami League leader and former Premier Hasina Wajed announced yesterday’s blockade and a national strike for today at a rally of more than 100,000 supporters on Monday. She said the alliance would organize “indefinite action” if the government did not agree to implement the reforms by tomorrow.
The alliance has previously threatened to call non-stop strikes and boycott the elections unless its demands are met.
Critics have accused the opposition of trying to invalidate the polls because it senses it will be defeated at the ballot box.
“The opposition parties are creating an anarchic situation by calling strikes and siege programs in a bid to foil the coming elections,” Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami was quoted as saying yesterday by the state-run BSS news agency.
“The Awami League is trying to make the country ineffective,” added Nizami, who is also leader of the government’s largest coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s coalition government is due to hand over to the caretaker government at the end of October.
The practice of having a caretaker government is aimed at preventing the party in office from using its political power to unfairly influence the election.
The Awami League held power until October 2001.
