Sun 29 Oct 2006
What is the president discussing with the military and BNP chief?
Posted by Asif under News and events , PoliticsI just got very reliable information that as I am writing this entry, President, the PM and the chiefs of the military are meeting now at Bangabhaban at a highly secretive meeting. If this is true, it completely destroys the credibility (whatever is left) of the president as a neutral figure. All day today his office lied about exhausing all the options of choices of Justices. Mahmudul Amin/Hamidul Huq was never invited. He is not following the constitution and instead going by the party line stand of the Jote. What a shame !
October 29th, 2006 at 7:55 am
To make the president neutral, a new CTG govt must be sworn in first. Until then President remains very much a BNP president. He can’t look to a side without Prime-Minister’s co-signature. And this is per the provision of constitution.
October 29th, 2006 at 8:19 am
I heard it is only the Army Chief (not Navy or Air Force) with KZ and the President. Interesting. It completely exposes the President then. Can our brave journalists on the ground find out more ?
October 29th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Does anyone know who is the present Army Chief and what’s his background ? Farhad
October 29th, 2006 at 8:28 am
It is really a shame full incident. Do u have any idea what is roll of Diplometic Missions
of Dhaka
In this situation.
Tanoy
October 29th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Current Army Chief background: No Backbones!
Sorry for being irrational but again I’m saying, no coup is possible, no martial law is possible, not every soldier and officer is bound to follow order and shoot civilian. Like Maj Gen (retd) Ibrahim said in Channel i, military is too involved with other things to do such thing. *Always optimistic*
October 29th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I meant irrational ugly comment toward Chief of Army Staff… pardon my mistake. I usually am a polite girl and do not swear! ha!
October 29th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Aren’t the army too busy earing start up capital working for the whities in africa?
maybe that army meeting isnt such a big deal? isnt it possible that its something innocuous?
..sorry just being naive citizens advocate
October 30th, 2006 at 4:05 am
Yesterday afternoon the three army chiefs called on Khaleda. The mystery is whether they called on her or whether they were called. And what was the discussion. If it was just to meet the outgoing PM, they would have called on her on the 27th or 28th since the new CTG should have been formed then. Conspiracy theories abound. Here’s some of them.
1) They pledged their support to whatever gets decided and promise to maintain law and order. This one is inline with the spineless reputation of the current chiefs.
2) They asked Khaleda to declare IA as the chief administrator. What’s the purpose of this? The AL would definitely protest this and start riots giving them a pretext to take over. The AL however didn’t take the bait.
3)Khaleda informed them of her plans to install IA as the chief. The army would remain on standby to quell any law and order problems and take out as many activists in the process as possible. Or the army goes along with the plan because they think they can quell the riots and come out on top.
With the mass populace ready to support the army should they take over, why hasn’t the army come in? My theory is, the army has been so politicised recently that even if one faction wanted to come in there would be revolt. And secondly the army is afraid of losing it’s lucrative UN peacekeeping jobs so the junior officers aren’t very enthusiastic about a military takeover. And lastly there isn’t anyone in the army with the leadership skills and charisma to pull it off.
October 30th, 2006 at 5:04 am
“Bangladesh should do what Pakistan did to Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Too many voices cause chaos and not democracy in our country.”
BD should emulate Pakistan? :O
You’ve got to be kidding me.
btw,I think you’re a bit confused about the definition of democray.
October 30th, 2006 at 6:46 am
BD should emulate Pakistan? :O
You’ve got to be kidding me.
btw,I think you’re a bit confused about the definition of democray.
Reply:
I did not say emulate but learn from similar political deviance my opposition in Pakistan. Emulate is the wrong word. No, I am not confised about the definition of democracy. I did not define democracy here. I just said that too many voices are often the cause of chaos and not consensus when no body is controlling the agenda.
Hope this clarification helps.
Best,
Irad Siddiky.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Irad,
Thanks for clearing that up.
If you were making the point that we should aspire to take action against corrupt politicians and maybe stop with the dynastic politics (like in pakistan )…then I agree with you.But I definitely don’t want to give up on democracy and live under a military junta.
About the second point…to me in a democracy the political arena should be one in which leaders and voters make arguments, listen, and change their minds.VOICES OF DISSENT should be welcomed and issues should be debated not quelled because it might not go along the party line. In our country one of the main reasons why democracy is not working right now is because all the political parties are themselves not democratic.