Sajeeb Wazed Joy wants AL’s role in BD reforms, polls

NEW DELHI, Sept 25 (Reuters): The son of Bangladesh's ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, said he was happy with the army chief's timeline for elections within 18 months, though it was later than expected, but warned that genuine reform and polls were impossible without her party Awami League (AL).
General Waker-uz-Zaman, whose refusal to stand by Hasina in the face of deadly student protests prompted her flight to India in August, has told the agency that democracy should return within a year to a year-and-a-half.
"I'm happy to hear we have an expected timeline at least now," Hasina's son and adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, told Reuters late on Tuesday.
"But we have seen this play out before where an unconstitutional, unelected government promises reform and then things only get worse."
He was referring to Bangladesh's history of coups since independence from Pakistan in 1971. The most recent was in 2007, when the military backed a caretaker government that ruled until Hasina took power two years later in a tenure that ran 15 years.
With the police left in disarray after Hasina fled, the powerful army took a key role in subsequent events, with Zaman saying he meets the head of the interim government each week as the military backs its stability efforts.
Wazed, who lives in Washington, said neither he nor the interim government had reached out for talks on the way ahead for the country of 170 million.
"It's impossible to have legitimate reforms and elections by excluding the oldest and largest political party," he added.
Hasina has been sheltering near Delhi since she fled last month. Many other senior Awami League leaders have either been arrested on accusations of having roles in the strife that killed more than 1,000 people, or have gone into hiding.