THE chief adviser to the interim government Muhammad Yunus, who stands his ground for holding the national elections by June 2026, has in Tokyo said that not all political parties want the elections by December and only one party so does. The remark that he has made at the Nikkei Forum 2025 has not named any party, but he has obviously alluded to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The remark lends credence to the perception that either Muhammad Yunus is misled or he is misleading the world about the time when the political parties of Bangladesh want the elections. We at 抖阴精品 would like to give him the benefit of the doubt in noting that he may have been misled as he might not have been aware that along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, most of the centrist and leftist parties, which media reports put at 52, want the elections by this December. Only a handful of parties 鈥� the National Citizen Party and Islamist parties chiefly including the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Andolan Bangladesh 鈥� do not see problems with the holding of elections by June 2026 or even beyond.
The interim government had better announce a clear road map to holding elections sometime between this December and June 2026 as the reforms that it has been effecting have hardly got off to any meaningful start even in 10 months after the installation of the government in early August 2024. Reforms are necessary to right the wrong that the authoritarian Awami League government had effected in a decade and a half. There is the need for democratic reforms in various sectors of governance, which have also for long been in demand in society. The initiatives for reforms that the interim government has taken and the pace the issues progress have almost fallen through, creating the likelihood of leaving the country at risks. The government would rather did no longer curdle the democratic process and go ahead to hold the elections at the earliest, leaving the issues of much-needed reforms for an elected government to accomplish and the would-be opposition parties, along with people, press for it in case the elected government shows any reluctance. Whilst the government tarries the electoral process, some right-wing parties and groups rearing their head, with an apparently veiled government support. Muhammad Yunus should realise that so many people have not risen up to the occasion against the illiberal Awami League government and laid down their lives for liberal democracy in July 2024 to set in the dominance of a right-wing political order, setting aside the democratic tenets.
The government should, rather, hold effective open and behind-the-scenes dialogues, if needed, with major political parties for the national elections much before June 2026. He should realise that he and his team might be held responsible for any trouble that may ensue out of his delaying the national elections.
