Thousands of candidates in Bangladesh’s upcoming national election have withdrawn their nomination papers after opposition parties announced a boycott of the polls, officials said on Thursday. “Out of 4,146 candidates, 2,370 have withdrawn their nomination papers,” said election commission official SM Asaduzzaman. The candidates belonged to the main opposition Awami League and other opposition parties.Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed on Wednesday announced a boycott of the January 22 elections, saying the polls would not be fair. The Awami League leads a 14-party coalition of opposition parties. It has demanded a string of reforms which it says are necessary to ensure the elections are not tilted in favour of the outgoing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Two other parties also announced a boycott: the Jatiya Party of former army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad and the Liberal Democratic Party of former president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury. The immediate past prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, launched a full-scale election campaign on Thursday outside the capital Dhaka, unfazed by the boycott threat.
The coalition accuses the BNP of trying to rig the elections by appointing biased officials to key positions in the election commission and the interim government which has to organise the polls by the end of January. The reforms demanded include revision of the voter list, changes to judiciary and intelligence agency chiefs, and the replacement of two election commissioners.