Bangladesh cabinet ministers resign to allow all-party government formation

Bangladesh cabinet ministers submitted their resignations yesterday to allow prime minister Shaikh Hasina to form an all-party government to prepare for polls, a plan rejected by the opposition which is pushing for a neutral caretaker government.

The move comes after a four-day nationwide general strike to force Hasina's ruling Awami League to conduct the elections under a technocrat-led government.

The prime minister last month proposed the all-party interim government as measure to  break a deadlock over upcoming parliamentary polls scheduled for January.

However, the main opposition BNP and its 17 allies have made it clear they would not join the government with Hasina in charge and are pushing ahead with their demand for a caretaker government to organise the elections.

The prime ministers' press secretary Abul Kalam Azad said that the ministers and state minister present at the cabinet meeting yesterday had submitted their resignation letters to prime minister Shaikh Hasina.

According to cabinet secretary Mosharaf Hussain Bhuiyan, the resignations came as the current cabinet held its ''last meeting in its existing form'' and it was part of a process to ''reconstitute the cabinet''.

An adviser to the premier said the resignation of some of the ministers would not be accepted under a government plan to keep them in the all-party government while the resignations of the rest were sent to the presidential palace for formal acceptance.

The development comes with a nationwide 84-hour general strike enforced by BNP and its rightwing allies including fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami entering its second day.

The violent shutdown, which claimed two more lives overnight, is aimed at increasing pressure on the government to accept the opposition's demand for the constitution of a non-party caretaker government led by an "acceptable" figure for election oversight.

The strike came after two forced back-to-back 60-hour shutdowns since 27 October on the same issue. This would be the third prolonged strike in two weeks.

The BNP-led alliance called the first 60-hour shutdown from 27 October following it up with another from 4 November to press for the restoration of the neutral caretaker government system to oversee the polls scheduled to be held by 25 January, 2014.

The political turmoil followed by violence has so far taken a toll of 26.

According to political analysts, the ministers' resignations reflected the firm stance of the government for proceeding with the plan to constitute the all-party government for election oversight even in the event the BNP declined to join the interim administration or decided to boycott the elections.