President Hamid to wrap up dialogue today

President Abdul Hamid is scheduled to wrap up his ongoing dialogue today, after holding talks with ruling Awami League at the Bangabhaban.

Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will lead a 10-member party delegation to hold the dialogue with the president at 4:00pm.

Of 32 registered political parties, seven -- including BNP, Communist Party Bangladesh, Islamic Andolon Bangladesh, Liberal Democratic Party -- have boycotted the dialogue terming it ‘meaningless’.

They said that the dialogue would not bring any fruitful results as the president had no power to go beyond the prime minister's advice as per the constitution.

According to the parties that boycotted the dialogue, none of the proposals they made in the previous two dialogues in 2012 and 2016 was materialised or evaluated.

As a result, there is no meaning to attend in the same dialogue that will not yield any result, they said.

In the dialogue, most of the political parties proposed Abdul Hamid for taking measures to enact a law on the formation of the EC for holding a free and fair national election.

Quoting Abdul Hamid, several political parties told media that the president told them that he would try to look into the matter although he had limited power in this regard as per the constitution.

Dr Akbar Ali Khan, a noted economist and a former adviser to the caretaker government, recently commented that the formation of a search committee would yield no good results as the EC would be constituted with the persons picked by the government.

As per the constitution, the EC should be formed under law, but this law has not been enacted yet in Bangladesh.

The tenure of the current EC, led by KM Nurul Huda, will expire on February 14.

President Abdul Hamid is likely to form a search committee within a day or two after wrapping up his dialogue.