Jamaat demands reforms before parliamentary elections

Following the meeting with Jamaat, the chief advisor is now set for talks with the NCP

During a meeting with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, the Jamaat-e-Islami has said holding parliamentary elections before implementing reforms will not fulfil people’s expectations.

Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said this at a media briefing after the hour-long meeting ended around 9:30pm on Saturday.

Amid growing political unease, the chief advisor sat with the Jamaat-e-Islami delegation as part of his consultations with political parties.

He met two Jamaat leaders around 8:30pm following a discussion with the BNP.

Alongside the Jamaat chief, the party’s deputy chief Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher, Local Government Advisor Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, and National Consensus Commission Vice-President Ali Riaz were in attendance.

Before joining the meeting, Taher told journalists: “We have come to meet the chief advisor to discuss the country’s overall circumstances.”

Earlier in the evening, around 7:45pm, Yunus met a four-strong delegation from the BNP, led by the party’s Standing Committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain.

After the meeting with Jamaat, he is scheduled to meet with the newly formed National Citizen Party (NCP) later that night.

The talks were arranged as the political climate grew tense over the army chief’s call for the next general election by December, reported rifts with the interim government, and growing speculation about Yunus’s future in office.

Chief Advisor’s Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder confirmed that more dialogues with other political parties are scheduled for Sunday.

However, the list of those parties has not yet been finalised.

For weeks, internal disagreements have brewed among pro-uprising parties over election, state reforms, the July Proclamation, and the Awami League ban.

Before that, the interim government faced criticism over incidents of mob-led attacks, including arson, looting, and the vandalism of homes and properties.

Protest marches have increasingly pushed toward the State Guest House Jamuna, defying restrictions and assembling near its perimeter wall throughout the day and night.

In such a charged atmosphere, Yunus’s “consideration of stepping down” emerging on Thursday only deepened the political rift among the parties.

NCP Convenor Nahid Islam alleged that a repeat of the infamous 1/11 scenario is in the making.

Amid protests demanding the swearing-in of BNP leader Ishraque Hossain as Dhaka South mayor, the NCP called for the removal of advisors Wahiduddin Mahmud, Salehuddin Ahmed, and Asif Nazrul.

The BNP, in turn, demanded the dismissal of advisors Asif Mahmud, Mahfuj Alam, and Khalilur Rahman.

With growing discord among the “main partners” of the July movement, the government invited the political parties for back-to-back talks.