Bangladesh's main opposition party said on Friday it would boycott the next general election unless the caretaker government and the election commission were made more independent. The next election is due in January 2007. The constitution says elections should be held under a non-party caretaker administration within three months after a government completes its five-year term.
"We will not participate in the election if our proposals, to give more power to the interim neutral caretaker government and the election commission, are not accepted," Sheikh Hasina, chief of the main opposition Awami League, told reporters.
"If needed, the constitution should be amended in this regard," she added.
Two elections held under caretaker governments, in 1996 and 2001, proved that neither the administration nor the election commission could perform independently to make the elections flawless, Hasina said. "The advisers of the caretaker government and the members of the election commission must be selected after consultation with all political parties," she said.
If the opposition did boycott the next poll, the government would not be deemed credible and might have to resign, as happened in 1996.
Under current provisions, the immediate past chief justice - a government appointee - becomes chief adviser to the caretaker administration and chooses other members to assist him.
The government also unilaterally appoints the four members of the election commission, including the chief commissioner.
Awami says it does not believe the chief adviser could be truly independent under the current system as he would necessarily be beholden to the outgoing government. It believes any respected figure could be chosen as chief adviser.
Hasina, a former prime minister, announced the proposals after marathon consultations with 13 other opposition parties, which have no representatives in the current parliament.
The Awami League has 58 seats in the 300-seat chamber while the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies have 220.
The opposition's reform proposal says the chief adviser should retain command of the armed forces.
The caretaker government would carry out day-to-day administration and would hold the general election only during its three-month tenure.
The proposal said the independent election commission would have authority to take any steps, including deploying troops at polling centres, to ensure fair elections.
The concept of the caretaker government came up in 1990 during a mass movement against then president Hossain Mohammad Ershad because previous governments, mostly headed by military rulers, had rigged the elections.
After the first election under a caretaker administration the following year, the new government of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, the BNP chief, incorporated the provision in the constitution in the wake of a movement spearheaded by Sheikh Hasina.
"Awami League should return to the parliament and place the proposal in the house for consideration," Barrister Moudud Ahmed, minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, told reporters.
Political observers say Awami, because of its relatively small number of seats, will not be able to convince the house to back the reforms.
The party has also boycotted parliament since late last year after a grenade attack on a rally attended by Hasina.
Hasina survived, but 23 people including leaders and workers of the party were killed and 150 others were wounded.
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