Former Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia dismissed talk of exile in her first public comments in five months and called on the army-backed government to hold early polls, reports said Saturday. "See I am still in the country," she told reporters following a meeting with US ambassador Patricia Butenis late Friday, her first public appearance since January.
Zia, head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, left office last year ahead of January polls that were subsequently cancelled by the president amid opposition allegations the voting system was corrupt.
An emergency government appointed by the president then began a massive crackdown on corruption and arrested scores of high-profile political leaders including Zia's eldest son and heir apparent Tareque Rahman. Since then, speculation has been rife that she would accept exile in order to have the corruption charges dropped. But Zia side-stepped the issue and used her meeting with Butenis to push the government to drop a ban on political activity and move quickly to hold new polls.