Bangladesh Ruling party hit by massive defection
The LDP leaders said they had left the BNP because it had become “a family dynasty” that promoted corruption and harboured (Islamist) terrorists”.Khaleda’s eldest son, Tareque Rahman, is the BNP’s first joint secretary-general, the number three position in the party, and is being tipped as Khaleda’s successor.
Khaleda’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, was the nation’s president and the BNP chief until his assassination in 1981
Khaleda is due to hand over power to a caretaker authority on Saturday at the end of her five-year rule. The caretaker authority will supervise elections in January 2007.
Political analysts said the LDP’s emergence was a big blow to Khaleda and would have a strong impact in her fight against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the January’s vote.
Daily Star and Reuter’s report
The speech of Oli Ahmed today was combative and confident.
Oli Ahmed in his speech said: “A time will come when there will not be any party named BNP. More BNP leaders will join us in 15 days. If the BNP mistreats any of our new party members, we will take an eye for an eye.”
Fourteen members of the prime minister’s family have looted the wealth of the country. We have to recover the country’s lost wealth,” he announced.
If you recall, former BNP MP Nazim Kamran Chowdhury had this to say about BNP in his analysis
There is, at present, significant differences between the old and new leadership. Mr Tarek Rahman is leading the new wave. He appears to be in command, but he has neither earned the respect and loyalty of the old Party members, nor inspired the “new” voters who are of his generation. To this is added the conflict in almost every parliamentary constituency between the seating MP and his rivals. Fuelling this conflict is the horde of “new comers” who have been associated with the Hawa Bhaban entering the electoral fray. Many of them are retired or retiring bureaucrats, who are now asking for their rewards. The BNP no longer seems to be a political party. It is rather an association of interest groups aligned by their sole desire for financial gain at national and local levels. This also means that the local inner-party rivalry is based not on political differences, but on economic ones. This further means that disciplining by the High Command will be all that more difficult, as the “economic” stakes are too high for the rival factions. The result is that almost every BNP seat is now “unsafe”.