THE interim government has finally put out a call for political parties to reach a consensus in a week on the reform proposals that the national consensus commission has laid out in the July charter. As major political parties remain divided over important points, including the time frame for the implementation of the charter and the proposed referendum that would validate the charter to bring it into force, the council of advisers at a meeting at the Chief Adviser鈥檚 Office has observed that despite extensive discussions, the parties have yet to reach a full agreement on several proposals. The meeting of the council of advisers, with the chief adviser, Muhammad Yunus, presiding, has decided that the government would move forward on its own if the political parties failed to reach a consensus on the July charter and the implementation of the recommendations for reforms. Whilst the Bangladesh Nationalist Party says that all parties need to act within the framework of the consensus already reached and signed, noting that there is no scope to move beyond what has been agreed, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami welcomes the government鈥檚 call for the parties to reach the consensus in a week, noting that the government should act as the referee in the process.
Whilst the National Citizen Party criticises the government for passing the responsibility on to the political parties, accusing certain quarters within it of trying to sabotage the forthcoming national elections and urging the government to shoulder the responsibility for the implementation of the charter, Ganatantra Mancha says that the political parties would take the initiative to resolve the process of implementing the July charter without delay. The problem, however, appears to have surfaced from the gap between what the political parties have agreed on at the prolonged dialogue with the national consensus commission and what the July charter contains as the outcome of the discussion. The political parties have notes of dissent on much more than a half of the proposals for constitution-related reforms that go into the July charter. One party having dissent on some proposals and another having dissent on some others are natural. It would have been fair if only the recommendations that have no notes of dissent, as agreed on by the political parties in the dialogue with the consensus commission, had gone into the charter. And, a proposition like this would have made the consensus meaningful and the problem that has now surfaced would not have so done.
But as the chief adviser to the government, the head of the government that is, is also the head of the national consensus commission, the resolution of the issues, created by the commission now plaguing the implementation of the July charter, lies with the commission. The national consensus commission must, therefore, resolve the problem it has created.