AL council
The recently concluded 20th national council of the ruling Awami League has certainly failed to live up to the expectations. In other words, this council has been no different from the previous ones and it seems that holding of the council was more of ending a formality than bringing real "change" in the running of the party. While the newly re-elected party chief is undoubtedly the undisputed leader of the party, it was from her that we had expected the initiative for change to come. As one English daily's editorial put it, "even articulation of the aspiration to be a candidate runs the risk of being construed as challenging the authority of the party president," it was not unexpected that no candidates were available to run for the post of party president or general secretary. The party chief and general secretary have already chosen the 45 members of the central working committee, and the rest of the members are to be chosen by the party president. However, for the sake of intra-party democracy, it would have been better had there been elections to all the posts of the CWC.
It was internal democratisation that we had expected from the AL. So, bringing reforms within the political parties, that had been the aim of the RPO, is yet to be attained.
The AL has lost an opportunity to meet the popular demand of the people.
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