Top Bangladesh Party Says Has Election Doubts

A government official said they remained fully committed to hold the election on Dec. 18, and hoped all parties would take part.

One of the two main political parties in Bangladesh has criticised the interim government's preparations for next month's parliamentary election, saying it would only take part in the poll if conditions improved.

"They (government) are trying to confuse people by giving concocted and twisted statements ... it has not fulfilled any demands by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies to take part in the vote," BNP secretary-general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said late on Saturday.

"In fact the government has not implemented any of our proposals so far. So it is not possible for the BNP-led alliance to go to the polls," he told reporters after meeting with BNP leader Khaleda Zia at her party office.

But Delwar did not say if the BNP had decided to boycott the election.

Earlier on Saturday, a government official said it remained fully committed to hold the election on Dec. 18, and hoped all parties would take part.

Chowdhury Tanveer Ahmed Siddiky, another senior BNP leader, said on Sunday any government installed through an election without the BNP "will survive no more than a month."

"So the interim government should better try to accept BNP's demands and pave the way for it to take part in the polls," he told reporters.

Government adviser (minister) Hossain Zillur Rahman said if a congenial atmosphere prevailed before the vote, the government would consider lifting emergency rule, imposed after widespread political violence before scheduled elections in January 2007.

Khaleda's BNP have said emergency rule should be lifted immediately, and that leaders convicted or arrested for alleged corruption should be able to contest the vote. So far the authorities have shown no sign of conceding this.

Khaleda and her arch rival Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, who have both served as prime minister, were arrested last year on corruption charges.

They were released after a year behind bars, as authorities wanted to bring their parties -- which ruled Bangladesh for 15 years until 2006 -- into the polls.

The Awami League has already confirmed its participation in Dec. 18 polls.

The Election Commission said it had registered 32 political parties, including the Awami League, BNP and its main ally Jamaat-e-Islami party, by close of deadline on Sunday.

EX-PMS' TALKS FIZZLE OUT

Signs emerged last week for a meeting between Hasina and Khaleda, ending one-and-half decades of refusing to talk, after their aides said the two had finally agreed to sit down to discuss critical national issues ahead of the election.

Analysts and officials predicted the meeting would help resolve disputes over BNP's election participation and narrow its differences with Hasina's Awami League.

But Hasina's spokesman, Syed Ashraful Islam, said late on Saturday that Awami League was not thinking about a Hasina-Khaleda meeting at the moment.

"Now we are very busy with preparations for the election, picking candidates and talking to our allies," he said.

"The flicker (of hope) has disappeared," said an official in the interim government, expressing dismay over the looming uncertainty over the nation's future.

Hasina and Khaleda last met in 1990 when they jointly led a people's campaign that ousted military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad. He now heads the Jatiya Party.