Awami hopeful of forming govt with Jatiya support

Awami hopeful of forming govt with Jatiya support

By Nadeem Qadir

DHAKA (AFP): Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Bangladesh's
founding leader, is set to become the nation's second female
prime minister, following the confirmation that the Jatiya Party
(JP) will throw its weight behind her.

Party sources Monday said Wajed's Awami League was now
confident of forming Bangladesh's next government after the JP of
jailed former president Hussain Muhammad Ershad reaffirmed its
support Sunday night.

"Yes, of course, we have lent support to (the) Awami League,"
JP secretary-general Anwar Hossain told reporters late Sunday.

He added: "Those who expressed different views did that in
their personal capacity, (and) it is sure that those views in no
way can undo the statement issued by myself and party acting
chief Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury" on Saturday.

His comments, which ended a day of confusion over the party's
role when it emerged as the power broker after the June 12
general elections, followed 90-minute talks with Awami League
chief and prime minister-apparent Wajed.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Wajed's father, led Bangladesh to
independence from Pakistan in 1971. He was killed and his post-
independence government toppled during a 1975 bloody military
coup.

Ershad's brother, G.M. Kader, also elected on a Jatiya ticket,
was at the talks along with other senior leaders.

The JP leader's wife, Raushan, met Ershad at prison Sunday
night and later told the Janaknatha newspaper: "I have no
objection to the statement issued, but it would have been better
to have arrived at such a decision in a party meeting."

Ershad, who ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for nearly nine
years, is serving a 13-year prison term for graft. He won five
seats, the maximum permitted for each candidate, in the June 12
elections.

In a handwritten letter, published in the Banglabazar Patrika
newspaper, Ershad said he was authorizing Hossain and his brother
to negotiate the support for the Awami League.

It was still unclear what the conditions were, but apparently
Ershad's release was a key consideration.

However, a League spokesman told AFP that Wajed maintained her
government would allow "the laws of the land to take its own
course" in the case.

A presidential palace source said diplomats and politicians
from leading parties had held talks with President Abdur Rahman
Biswas over the past few days. "We have no fascination for any
party, but we would like to see the constitutional process
followed," he quoted the diplomats as telling Biswas.

The source added that Biswas, a member of former prime
minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP),
maintained that he would follow the constitution and call upon
the majority party to form the new government.

"Most likely, if all goes well, the new government will take
the oath of office around June 24," he said, referring to the end
of the election process after repolling on Wednesday in 27
constituencies.

Newspapers reported the BNP was still trying to woo the JP,
but political commentators said it was unlikely that Ershad would
reverse his stand, as he held the BNP responsible for his
jailing.

The Awami League now leads a bloc of 167 seats in the 300-seat
parliament -- 134 of its own, plus the support of one independent
MP, the JP's 29 seats and two seats held by two smaller ally
parties.

A total 151 out of 300 parliamentary seats is needed for an
absolute majority.

Zia's BNP holds 104 seats.

MPs will select another 30 seats reserved for women when
parliament convenes.

The election commission has gazetted 273 results, despite the
BNP's demand that results be withheld until their complaints
regarding irregularities in 111 constituencies were investigated.