Dissidents prefer to go slow as Hasina looks more pro-reform

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The ‘dissident’ leaders in the Awami League, who initiated a move to reform the party, seem to have adopted a go-slow strategy after the party chief Sheikh Hasina declared that reform proposals must come through the party forum, not from outside.
The AL president also assigned her deputies to prepare a reform agenda including proposals that leaders above 60 years of age would not be in the party executive committee and the party chief and presidium members would not hold cabinet posts simultaneously, said one of her spokesmen on Tuesday.
The dissident leaders, who planned to submit a draft of proposals prepared by them to Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, now seemed hesitant.
The acting general secretary of the Awami League, Mukul Bose, told New Age on Tuesday that it might take some more days to finalise the draft though the day before he said that they had drafted a 21-point reform proposal and it would placed before the party president within three days.
A number of party leaders told New Age that the ‘reformists’ now preferred to go slow as Hasina took a more
pro-reform stance and
spelled out some of her own proposals.
Hasina on Sunday said, ‘Any proposals must be placed before the party forum for discussion. The party will decide on what proposals to accept and what to be rejected. Proposals should not be discussed outside the party forum.’
The AL presidium member Matia Chowdhury said that it was Hasina who had brought reform proposals first and no reforms could be implemented keeping her out.
After an informal meeting with the party chief at her Sudha Sadan residence, her special assistant Hasan Mahmud told reporters on Tuesday that Hasina was considering a proposal that no leaders from the party chief to presidium members would be allowed in the cabinet if the party formed government.
‘No leaders over the age of 60 will be allowed to remain a member of the Awami League presidium or central working committee.
‘All leaders exceeding 60 will be accommodated in the advisory council,’ the AL chief was quoted by Hasan Mahmud to have said.
He said, ‘Nobody in the party thinks about reform excluding her [Hasina]. In fact reformists have begun to realise that no reform is possible without Sheikh Hasina’.
An organising secretary, who was reportedly involved in the dissidents’ reform
process, seems to have backtracked from his earlier stance saying, ‘I do not see any move [on the part of the dissidents] for preparing a draft for reforms.
‘There is no scope to prepare any draft for reforms without instruction [from party leadership] and discussion in the party forum and until relaxation of ban on politics.’
Party insiders said that a section of leaders, who had reportedly prepared a draft of reform proposals keeping Hasina out, were now trying to approach her.
Rift surfaced in the Awami League over reform in the party since the interim administration began pressing for reforms in the electoral and political processes. A section of the AL led by a few senior leaders was trying to pursue reforms keeping Hasina out while others insisted that things must be done under her leadership.

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