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Bangladesh parties

mull strategy for

June 12 polls

DHAKA: Political parties in Bangladesh are likely to take advantage of a week-long holiday to plan strategy now that elections have finally been set for June 12.

But political analysts said it is still too early to tell if the run-up to the polls will be as bloody as the last.

The long Moslem and public holiday period, which began on Sunday, "will give politicians an opportunity to meet people at the grass-roots while they visit friends and relatives in the villages and help draw up their poll strategy," said Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, editor of Banglabazar Patrika newspaper.

"This time it's going to be a fully-contested election but it's too early to say if the run-up will be as contentious and bloody as in the last polls," he told Reuters.

The new elections, announced by Chief Election Commissioner Abu Hena on Saturday night, will be held nearly four months after the country's last poll on February 15.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won by default after opposition parties boycotted the election, but the BNP was forced to give up power on March 30 and a non-party caretaker government was installed to arrange fresh polls.

The BNP and Awami League, main contenders for power, came out fighting soon after the new election date was set, announcing plans to hold their last pre-election rallies at the same venue in Dhaka on June 10.

Dhaka City Corporation Mayor Mohammad Hanif, an Awami League leader, told reporters he would give a decision after the current Moslem Eid al-Adha festival.

Political leaders said brisk election campaigning would start in the first week of May.

Major political parties on Sunday invited applications for contesting the parliamentary elections.

The third biggest group, the Jatiya Party, simultaneously vowed to step up a campaign for release of its leader, ex-president Hossain Mohammad Ershad, from jail before the polls.

Party leaders said on Saturday that Ershad, convicted in 1991 for misuse of power and corruption, was in ill health and should be transferred to hospital immediately. The government has yet to respond to Jatiya's plea.

Hena, who took over as election chief on April 9, warned any attempts to tamper with voting would be met with a heavy hand.

"The offenders would be handled without mercy," Hena said.

He said the commission was working relentlessly to ensure free exercise of people's franchise and urged political parties not to make provocative statements or speeches.

He also called for a strengthening of the drive to retrieve illegal firearms and restrictions on any undue power in the run-up to, and during, the elections.

Nearly 300 people have been killed and thousands injured in an opposition campaign of strikes and widespread violence since December 1994 when opposition parties resigned en masse from parliament in a bid to oust then prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia of the BNP.-Reuter