Give dialogue a chance, refrain declaring election schedule: AB Party

AB Party welcomes the recent attempt of dialogue initiated by the USA, our most critical development partner. All major political parties should heed to this call, the ruling party in particular, and immediately come to the table to find a peaceful resolution of the current political stalemate. Amar Bangladesh Party (AB Party) held a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon at AB conference room in its central office. 

AFM Solaiman Chowdhury, a retired bureaucrat and Convenor of AB Party presided over the press conference where Mojibur Rahman Monju, Member Secretary, read out the written briefing. Prof. Dr. Abdul Wahab Minar, Advocate Tajul Islam, Asaduzzaman Fuaad, Zubair Ahmed Bhuiyan, both, barrister-at-law and Joint Member Secretary, were, amongst others, also present.

The briefing read, the nation witnessed with sadness that our all-party political consensus has been arbitrarily repealed by this unelected government without having any election mandate to do so or seeking any public referendum. Last two elections were simply a farce where electoral aspiration of over 120 million voters was not realised. We, the people, are not prepared to allow similar one-party election to take place this time round. Democratic backsliding, as a crucial Indo-pacific nation, cannot be an option for this country anymore.

AB Party believes that unlawful detention en mass on trumped up cases including putting entire top pro-democracy leadership behind bar certainly cannot be a conducive environment for dialogue and hence, would not lead to any political settlement. We repeatedly demanded for unconditional release of the political prisoners to lay ground for dialogue.

The briefing carried on to note that this unlawful government is already in violation of Article 7 of our constitution for depriving this nation of a free, fair, participatory and credible election. The EC must remember of the grave consequence of organising a non-participatory election. We, therefore, call upon the EC to give dialogue a chance and refrain from declaring election schedule until a political settlement is reached.