The case for removal of Zakaria is both old and well established. He has been known to be partisan from the time he took over as the secretary of the EC and immediately started his infamous non-cooperation with the former CEC Abu Sayed. He started to boycott all meetings called by Sayed without giving any reason. On several occasions the CEC requested the PM, as the head of the EC secretariat, to remove him with no avail. It became very clear that he was BNP's man in the EC and that he was to call the shots and not the CEC. His personal agenda became more apparent when, after Justice M.A. Aziz took over as CEC, he started attending the very EC meetings that he boycotted for over two years. No EC secretary had ever disobeyed his boss the CEC and survived as Zakaria did, and this he could do only because of the full backing of the PMO. Not only that Zakaria did not try to hide his source of power he even flaunted it to increase his influence.

With such a background it is only natural that the 14-party alliance will demand his ouster. To be fair, they have been demanding it from the very beginning. BNP counters this demand by reminding the AL about Shafiur Rahman, well known for his partisan leanings, who remained in the EC during the 2001 elections, and who refused to resign in spite of the caretaker government's repeated request. May be today BNP is trying to pay AL back in the same coin.

While we can understand BNP's position of playing tit-for-tat, we are constrained to ask must we repeat the mistakes, the partisanship, and the crudities of the past? Is there no lesson to be learnt from the past? Now that we have traversed a long winding route to a near understanding, can we not close the matter by agreeing to this last point of Zakaria's removal? We urge the BNP to do so, particularly when a big cloud of uncertainty has been removed with the 14-party alliance signaling their readiness to go to the polls.