Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya on Thursday expressed his doubt about whether the interim government could hold the February elections in a fair manner.
Furthermore, he said, the bureaucracy, which was the main obstacle to the reform agenda, was now back to the scenario, while businessmen and politicians fled after the July uprising.
"This bureaucracy is the main safeguard of the old establishment. And the interim government has given it the opportunity to return (keep control of the old establishment)," he told a press conference titled "Selected policy recommendations and proposed national programme for the next government".
The event was organised by the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh at a hotel in the capital.
Dr Debapriya, also the convener of the platform, said the interim government could not show the capacity, the participation of stakeholders, and the openness needed to implement the reforms that it had talked about.
He highlighted the failure to take the opinions of stakeholders during dialogues as a major problem.
Referring to the interim government, he said instead of creating a new establishment, they came into a new box of small and extremist groups in many cases.
"They could not protect the citizens. Now the question is whether they will be able to conduct the elections impartially," he added.
Because of the situation, those who wanted to be the architects of the new establishment became part of the old one. They entered the electoral process, which had usually involved a lot of money. Though they mostly raised money through crowdfunding, they could not reduce this cost, he continued.
"The situation emerged as we, including the citizens concerned, did not play our due role in the reform agenda and their implementation," he added.
Twelve policy recommendations and national programmes for the next government were presented at the event.
The policy recommendations were presented by CPD Distinguished Fellow Professor Mostafizur Rahman.
The national programmes were presented by CPD Additional Director (Research) Towfiqul Islam Khan.
The recommendations included giving smart cards, including to families, for health support for farmers and the youth as subsidies and planning an economic agenda to support the country's sustainable development.
They also included taking planned programmes to address the health, power, environment, and social security sectors ahead of the least developed country (LDC) graduation as things would be tough after that.
The event was attended by the platform's core group members Asif Ibrahim, Rasheda K Choudhury, Shaheen Anam, Sultana Kamal, and others.
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