Yunus returned to Bangladesh on Saturday to finish his four-day tour of London. The London Tour featured a meeting with Rahman, the acting chief of former Prime Minister Kaledazia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
After the meeting with Rahman, BNP leader Amir Kars Mahmoud Choudhry and Yunus security advisor Hariru Rahman held a joint briefing, suggesting that elections could take place in February next year.
Jamaat and the National Citizens Party (NCP) called the London meeting between Yunus and the BNP leader on Friday a bias against certain parties. The BNP is an arch rival of the Awami League of abdicated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
In a statement on Saturday, Jamaat called the joint press conference by both Yunus and Rahman representatives “a violation of political norms.” This is because the interim government chief has particularly advanced election time, which deviated from the deadline he announced in Dhaka last week.
“Through this, he (Yunus) expressed special affection for the Party (BNP) that undermines his fairness,” the statement said, adding that instead of announcing a new deadline in foreign soil, he should have returned home and consulted other parties. The NCP, which launched in February, said on Friday night it would not accept Election Day before the implementation of the July charter, referring to the fierce upset that overthrew the violent student-led Hasina administration last year. Hasina fled to India on August 5th and three days later, and Yunus took on the charges as head of the interim government. The NCP emerged as a student’s political derivative against discrimination (SAD).
The NCP said that while Yunus-Rahman Meeting made election deadlines even more important, the “main demand of the people” of the post-Hasina administration, namely justice and reform, did not receive the same importance.
The BNP, several other political parties and the military had been putting pressure on Yunus to hold a general election by December. However, he said in a national speech last week that the vote will take place in April next year.
Yunus previously said the investigation will take place between December 2024 or June 2025 after trials of reform and justice or abdicated administration leaders have been completed.
Jamaat’s statement was “morally inappropriate” for Yunus as head of the interim government, and to hold a joint press conference with a single party, adding that such actions raised doubts among people about the fairness and neutrality of the upcoming election process.
The statement came after the party’s Central Executive Council meeting was held on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, the NCP said it has repeatedly observed that the government prioritizes the position and demands of “only one party” on election issues.
“We believe that holding parliamentary elections without a clear roadmap for the implementation of the July Declaration, the July Charter, and the implementation of the trial will turn the general uprising into mere transfer of power and curb the desire of people for national buildings,” the NCP statement said.
Yunus’s interim government dissolved the Awami Federation until its leaders were subjected to punitive action for their allegedly brutal actions to tame the uprising.
Most of Awami’s leaders were arrested, some fled abroad as they went underground and the interim government began a process of testing them in Bangladeshi’s international crime courts on charges like crimes against humanity.
