Sheikh Hasina starts forming new government

Sheikh Hasina starts forming new government

DHAKA (AFP): Sheikh Hasina Wajed began work yesterday on
forming a new Bangladeshi government following the victory of her
party, the Awami League, in general elections declared free and
fair by foreign observers.

Although the results from 29 constituencies have yet to be
determined, Wajed met with her advisors and others to discuss
forming a government later this month, party officials said.

With the results declared from 271 of the 300 parliamentary
constituencies, the Awami League has won 133 seats to emerge as
the largest single party and needs 18 more for an absolute
majority.

Twenty-nine constituencies have yet to be decided. Re-polling
will be held in 27 of them on June 19 following irregularities in
Wednesday's general elections, while the results in the two other
constituencies were held up on legal grounds.

A observer team from the U.S.-based National Democratic
Institute (NDI) endorsed the election results but criticized
incidents of intimidation of minority Hindu voters in some areas.

"This was unambiguously an honest, free and fair election,"
former U.S. congressman Stephen Solarz said.

He called on political parties to "accept their status as
members of the opposition with grace and dignity" and for the
winners to be "magnanimous and reconciliatory."

Reacting to remarks published in newspapers yesterday in which
Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said there had
been gross rigging, Solarz said: "I don't know what election they
are talking about. The one we saw was free and fair."

The BNP's deputy leader, Badruddoza Chowdhury, Thursday said
the party had complained to the election commission about alleged
fraud in 111 constituencies and demanded repolling there.

Wajed, 49, is expected to be chosen by newly elected Awami
League MPs as leader of the party's parliamentary group in next
few days, clearing her way to be Moslem Bangladesh's second women
prime minister succeeding her arch-rival Khaleda Zia, party
sources said.

Zia's BNP had the second-largest number of seats with 104,
followed by the Jatiya Party (JP) of jailed military dictator
Hussain Mohammad Ershad with 29. The fundamentalist Jamaat-e-
Islami had two seats and three others were won by two small
parties and an independent.

A record 73 percent of voters turned out in Wednesday's
election.

However, two NDI members witnessed intimidation of minority
Hindu voters, especially women, in two constituencies of
Chittagong district, and the NDI said it had heard of similar
incidents elsewhere.

It refused, however, to name any guilty parties, saying the
matter had to be investigated and made public by Bangladeshi
authorities.

Solarz said the NDI had received similar reports from other
areas but that the intimidation was not widespread enough to
imply a trend.

"We are not prepared to say every minority voter was
threatened, (but) we felt it was disturbing enough to mention it
in our report," Solarz said.

President Abdur Rahman Biswas has to call on the winning party
to form a government once he is satisfied of their majority in
the national parliament.

An official at the presidential palace said Biswas was waiting
for the final results before inviting Wajed, as leader of the
largest parliamentary group, to form the government.