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Sheikh Hasina Completes Full Term as PM
for Bangladesh
DHAKA, June 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed Saturday completed her full five-year term of office, becoming the first Bangladeshi leader to stay in power for so long.
The day also coincided with the 52nd founding anniversary of her party, the Awami League.
Sheikh Hasina, kicked off a three-day "People's Festival" to mark the occasion by urging voters to re-elect her party in upcoming general elections.
"People have to choose between a self-reliant and proud Bangladesh or those who want to keep the nation a beggar," she said as drums rolled and trumpets sounded amid cheers from thousands of party supporters. Sheikh Hasina is the first leader in the country's 30-year-history to complete a full term. The tenures of all other leaders have been cut short by political upheavals.
President Shahabuddin Ahmed, in a statement to mark the event, said the course of democracy was disrupted through "illegal means" in the past.
But he said free elections in 1991 and 1996 were the manifestation of the people's "earnest desire for democratic rule."
Parliament will be automatically dissolved on July 12, when the premier will hand over power to a neutral caretaker government, which has to organize elections by October.
Dhaka's streets on Saturday were decorated with colored flags and banners sporting the Awami League's election symbol of a boat. Newspapers, including the mass circulation Daily Jugantor, outlined the major successes and failures of the outgoing government.
It said successes included a landmark treaty with India to share the water of the river Ganges, ending two decades of tribal insurgency and achieving a surplus in food supplies. The failures included crime and electricity problems.
The leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Khaleda Zia, was campaigning for votes in northern Bangladesh Saturday. The BNP has led a four-party opposition alliance to try to oust Sheikh Hasina.
In recent days the two top women politicians have lashed out at each other despite newspaper commentators appealing for them to restrain their comments.
Zia's press advisor, Reazuddin Ahmed, told AFP Saturday that the completion of full term by Sheikh Hasina is "good for democracy, but no individual should take the credit."
"It is a continuation of the process that started in 1991 when the BNP came to power... that term ended just two months ahead of schedule," he said.
Zia's tenure was cut short due to a mass campaign by Sheikh Hasina, who was then the leader of the opposition, demanding a constitutional amendment to hold elections under a neutral caretaker government.
On fears that there may be violence in the run up to the polls Ahmed said: "It is too early to predict, but I do not foresee any widespread major violence as both sides are equally strong."
"If the caretaker government can play a strong and assertive role it will help in containing violence as well as in holding free elections," he said.
Bangladesh is one of world's most densely populated and least developed countries, with its people crammed into a delta of rivers that empties into the Bay of Bengal. Efforts to improve the standard of living are hampered by political instability, corruption, cyclones and floods, according to the BBC online archives.
Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first leader of independent Bangladesh who was assassinated in 1975. She has been in power since elections in 1996.
During her tenure she has concluded a water-sharing deal with India and ended an insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast of the country.
The BBC online service said she has also made it one of her goals to bring those responsible for her father's death to justice. The High Court has already confirmed death sentences against 10 former army officers - a further five await a decision on their fate.
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