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.