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Dhaka: Former prime minister Khalida Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led four party alliance has agreed to join the upcoming general elections provided the poll date was deferred by 10 days as consented earlier by the interim government.
"We will contest the election if it is held on December 28 [instead of December 18]," Zia announced at a press briefing after a meeting of her alliance partners including Jamaat-e-Islami at her Gulshan office in Dhaka late on Thursday, clearing clouds over the fate of the planned polls.
However, she insisted that the other three of her four demands, listed in her 48-hour ultimatum that expired on Wednesday, be met.
Demands
In her ultimatum, Zia had called for the government to lift the state of emergency; the scrapping of a clause in the amended Representation of the People Order that empowered the election commission to scrap candidacies at any time during the polls; and deferral of the local government's "upazila" or sub district elections by at least one month.
"We urge the government to create a congenial atmosphere for the election," she said.
Reacting to Zia's demands, the government's main spokesman and commerce adviser to the interim cabinet, Hossain Zillur Rahman, said "it is certainly positive that everybody is showing responsibility."
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