DHAKA: Former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed returned to Bangladesh yesterday after receiving medical treatment in the United States, vowing to lead her party in parliamentary elections next month.
Authorities deployed elite forces, troops and hundreds of armed police at the airport for the arrival of Hasina, who has been granted bail in all five corruption cases the interim government had filed against her. She was detained last year after the army-backed government took over, but released on medical parole in June.
“I call upon all Bangladeshis to remain united and face any attempt by anyone to thwart the election,” she told reporters after meeting party leaders at the airport. “There is no alternative to an election at this stage.” Hasina did not say who was trying to stop the election but was apparently referring to rival Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has yet to confirm its participation.
“The election must be held on schedule to return power to an elected government and restore democracy at the soonest,” Hasina said. Hasina also said she would forge an alliance with other parties to win the election. “But such an alliance would definitely exclude those who opposed the country’s independence and indulged in war crimes,” she said.
The alliance could include former military ruler Hossain Muhammad Ershad’s Jatiya Party, her colleagues said. Hasina and Khaleda jointly led a people’s revolt in 1990 that toppled Ershad after nine years in power, which he seized in a bloodless coup in 1982. They soon fell apart, gradually earning the title of the “Battling Begums.” “If elected, I will make my best efforts to redress people’s sufferings, including pains caused by high food prices,” Hasina told the cheering crowds.
Khaleda asked BNP leaders and workers on Wednesday to “avoid an unfair and unacceptable” election. BNP Secretary-General Khandakar Delwar Hossain said earlier the interim government was planning to hold a “flawed election to install a puppet government.”
