The NCP, a partner in the 11-party alliance, is putting more distance between itself and Jamaat-e-Islami. But it is not leaving the Jamaat-led alliance and will stay with it in parliament. The NCP will remain part of the alliance’s programmes demanding constitutional reform under the July National Charter approved in the referendum, while speaking up through its own programmes on other issues to build its own identity and position.
The alliance’s other partners are also pressing Jamaat over local government elections. They want an alliance for the local polls, but Jamaat is sticking to its decision to contest them on its own. Leaders of the parties and various sources gave this information, the daily Samakal reported.
The partners’ positions have set off a war of words between their activists and supporters on social media, with junior leaders of Jamaat and the NCP criticising each other. Senior leaders, however, say what is said on social media carries no weight in alliance politics.
Before the last parliamentary election, Jamaat, Islami Andolan, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis, Khelafat Majlis, Nezame Islami Party, JAGPA, BDP and Khelafat Andolan formed an eight-party understanding. They demanded a referendum and reforms before the election. The understanding later became an electoral alliance, joined by the NCP, AB Party, LDP and the Labour Party. Islami Andolan left in January after failing to agree on seat sharing, and the alliance then contested the election as the 11-party unity.
After the election, the parties stayed united to demand that the referendum result be implemented, and the grouping became a political alliance. It began joint programmes on issues including the oil and gas crisis and held divisional rallies demanding constitutional reform in line with the vote. Khelafat Majlis left the alliance in July, saying it was not being given importance.
The 11 parties held long marches from Dhaka to Chattogram on 5 September, Dhaka to Rangpur on 19 September and Dhaka to Khulna and Kushtia on 31 October. NCP convener Nahid Islam, member secretary Akhter Hossain and all its top leaders joined the first two, but not the Khulna march. Of the top leaders, only NCP senior joint convener Hasnat Abdullah took part, and he criticised Jamaat in his speech at the march rally.
NCP stays, but puts its own activity first
There is talk that the NCP will not stay in the Jamaat alliance, but Nahid Islam rejected it. He told Samakal that the 11-party unity remains and the NCP is part of it. The NCP took part, takes part and will take part in the joint movement for reform, he said, but on other issues it is giving priority to its own programmes.
Nahid Islam, described by Samakal as the opposition chief whip, said the Jamaat-NCP alliance exists in parliament too and will continue.
Several senior NCP leaders told Samakal that being in the alliance has made their party known as dependent on Jamaat. Jamaat’s leaders and activists fill the alliance’s programmes while NCP leaders only make speeches, so the party is not building its own ground and its activists are not energised. To change this, the NCP has become active with its own workers. The day before the long march it held a rally at Shahbagh on four demands, including the resignation of two ministers, its biggest programme since the election. The day after the march it held a youth conference and a procession. Its own programmes are energising its leaders and activists, they said.
One senior NCP leader told Samakal that activists are being told they cannot do politics relying on Jamaat or any other party, and that the NCP must build its own ideological identity and position. Another senior leader said the BNP keeps campaigning that the NCP is dissolving into Jamaat, and that Jamaat, which opposed independence in 1971, shares the NCP’s ideology. This constant campaign is creating confusion about the party and discontent among activists, he said, and the NCP will also speak up through its own programmes to get out of this situation.
Meanwhile, Jamaat and NCP supporters have again clashed on social media over their contributions to the July uprising and the alliance’s programmes. Supporters of other Qawmi-based parties are criticising Jamaat, and leaders of Islamist parties are speaking against one another on talk shows and podcasts.
Hamidur Rahman Azad, coordinator of the 11 parties and an assistant secretary general of Jamaat, told Samakal that politics is not decided by what happens on Facebook or social media. The alliance is not breaking up, he said, and this is only propaganda produced by the government. At the latest meeting of the alliance’s liaison committee, all parties agreed to strengthen the unity, while each partner would be more active than before with its own programmes. That is no problem; it is rather a good thing, he said.
Strain over local government polls
Under the Election Commission’s announced schedule, union parishad elections will begin on 11 January, with about four and a half thousand unions voting nationwide in five phases. It is not certain when city corporation, upazila parishad and municipality elections will be held. Jamaat-backed candidates are already campaigning, and the party’s leaders have started reaching out to voters even though there is no certainty the elections will be held within the next year. The NCP has announced party-backed candidates in more than a hundred upazilas and municipalities, and mayoral candidates for six city corporations.
Seven Qawmi-stream parties have begun talks, at the initiative of Hefazat-e-Islam, a strong opponent of Jamaat, on contesting the local polls as an alliance. They include Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis and Bangladesh Nezame Islam Party, both partners in the Jamaat alliance. Khelafat Majlis, which left the 11 parties a few months ago, is also part of the process.
Hefazat is uniting parties that follow the Deobandi school to bring that vote together. Jamaat, however, says the BNP is using Hefazat to form this alliance in order to split the right-wing vote in the local polls. The Deobandi parties’ view is that being in any alliance is more profitable than fighting the local polls alone, and if Jamaat does not form an alliance for the local elections, they will move to the Qawmi parties’ alliance.
Jamaat leader Hamidur Rahman Azad told Samakal there will be no alliance for the local elections. There was no central alliance in the past and there will not be one this time, he said, though there could be local understandings. Partners in the 11 parties can sit together at district or upazila level and agree on a single candidate in a union or municipality, and there will be no objection from the centre. This message has been given to all partners, he said.
NCP leader Akhter Hossain told Samakal that his party had already decided to contest the local polls on its own and is preparing accordingly.
Alliance sources said, however, that several parties, including Bangladesh Khelafat, AB Party and LDP, want an alliance for the local polls. They say staying with Jamaat is pointless without one: having given Jamaat continued support in the demand to implement the July Charter, there is no gain in staying in the alliance if they get no concessions in local elections.
A pressure tactic?
Alliance sources said the NCP is stepping up activity outside the alliance with the elections to Dhaka’s two city corporations in mind. The young party contested four Dhaka seats in the 13th parliamentary election. Nahid Islam won; senior joint convener Nasiruddin Patwary lost by a narrow margin, and joint convener Ariful Islam Adeeb also stood.
The NCP has backed Nasiruddin for mayor of Dhaka South and Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, a former adviser to the interim government, for Dhaka North. Jamaat’s candidate in the south is Abu Sadik Kayem, vice president of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union. In the north, Mohammad Salim Uddin, a member of the party’s executive council, has begun campaigning to be its mayoral candidate. Jamaat has also picked party-backed candidates in the country’s other 11 city corporations and is not willing to give way to its partners in city elections. This is another reason the NCP, which is preparing to contest alone, has moved away.
Alliance sources said the NCP had asked Jamaat at least to leave Dhaka North to Asif Mahmud, and Jamaat refused. Nahid Islam told Samakal, however, that the 11 partners will contest the elections separately but will campaign together for a fair election.
AB Party chairman Mojibur Rahman Manju told Samakal that the basis of the 11-party unity is constitutional reform under the July Charter approved in the referendum. The electoral unity became an alliance because the BNP is not doing that, he said. If every party in the alliance contests the city elections alone, the alliance’s unity will not hold.
Partners unhappy with Jamaat’s softness on the government
Some of the 11 partners believe Jamaat, the main opposition party, has not attacked the government enough over prices, the fuel crisis, workers’ wages, law and order and other issues. Leaders of three parties told Samakal there is no need to call hartals or blockades, but Jamaat has not put the government in the dock as it should have and has not been able to hold it to account. Jamaat’s role in parliament is soft, they said: after street protests outside, Jamaat says in parliament that the government is not to blame for the fuel crisis. This is creating an identity crisis for the opposition and raising the question of whether it is a tame opposition, as in the past.
Jamaat alleged rigging in the Thakurgaon-1 by-election. But the day after the vote, when the BNP candidate visited the Jamaat candidate’s home, the two exchanged flowers and sweets. This too angered the partners.
Leaders of various parties say such actions by Jamaat are damaging the opposition’s image and raising suspicion of an understanding with the government. So the NCP is moving away and towards its own programmes on public hardship, and AB Party is on the same path. On Monday, the NCP’s political council discussed what programmes it could take to the streets in November and December.
A senior Jamaat leader told Samakal that the party understands its partners’ feelings but is giving realistic programmes rather than indulging emotion. There is no question of an understanding with the government, he said. But Jamaat does not want to create a situation through agitation that brings instability and disrupts the constitutional transfer of power. Heating up the streets with clashes in order to build an anti-government image could disrupt that transfer, and the result would not be good for any party now active, he said.
(Source: Samakal)
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report