Postpone January 5 election

By this time, as our readers go through these comments, the opposition programme in the capital will have got underway in some form or another. At the same time, the authorities will have gone into action to thwart this programme, which reportedly has come at great cost to public convenience. Travellers to Dhaka and those inside the city faced tremendous hardship as all public transports were stopped by the government. We hope today's programme will pass off with no loss of life. Too much blood has been spilled in these past many weeks. We demand a stop to such bloodletting.
And one of the ways in which the on-going crisis can be resolved is for the ruling party, indeed the government, to go for positive action. Our considered view is that the prime minister and her government must make a bold move through the EC, of postponing the January 5 election in the larger interest of the nation's future. Since the ninth parliament is yet in existence, we are of the opinion --- one we think is shared by everyone worried about the future of democracy --- that it should be reconvened through the prime minister recommending to the president of the republic that such action be taken. The fundamental responsibility of the reconvened ninth parliament must be a serious deliberation on the modalities and means by which an acceptable polls-time government can be brought into being and a proper election process can get going.
Our suggestion presupposes the full and active participation in such a parliamentary exercise by the opposition. It must abjure its tendency to say 'no' to parliamentary debate and play its proper role in debating the pros and cons of a possible polls-time government on the floor of the House. We believe that such a step, envisaging participation in parliament by both the ruling party and the opposition, will not mean a climb-down by any of the two sides or give one an upper hand over the other. If politics is the art of healthy, purposeful compromise, the time is here and now for our political classes to prove they are capable of reaching that high ground in the interest of the nation, indeed of its future generation.
Our hope, like that of any other citizen who takes pride in the glorious history of our struggle for democracy and political sovereignty, is for a well thought out, participatory election process to be undertaken by the political parties. Let that be a prospect we can all look forward to. Let us move back from the brink.