BNP should re-think its response to RPO

THE Bangladesh Nationalist Party has rejected the provisions of the Representation of the People Ordinance (RPO) promulgated on August 19 in their entirety. It is a most unfortunate position for the party to have adopted. What makes it even more worrying is that the BNP has not given out the reasons behind its rejection of the RPO.
We as a responsible media take BNP's rejection very seriously and hence would like to know the reasons, arguments and facts behind such a sweeping rejection. But regrettably no explanation has been forthcoming except that there is not enough time left to carry out the reform. The problem of time limitation is something we sympathise with and squarely blame the Election Commission for having created it by taking far too long in readying the RPO.
But the whole of RPO cannot be rejected just on the basis of time constraint.
We need to state yet once more that the people of Bangladesh expect qualitative changes to come about in national politics through the general elections in December this year. Such provisions of the RPO as doing away with overseas branches of political parties, the requirement for intending candidates to provide the Election Commission with eight items of information about themselves, measures regarding a violation of the code of conduct, women's increased representation in party committees and a bottom-up nomination process vis-à-vis the selection of party candidates for elections certainly merit serious consideration. All of us are eagerly waiting for a transition back to democratic government, of the kind that will really and truly deliver the goods and thereby provide meaningful substance to our projected structure of political pluralism. The cavalier fashion in which the party rejected the ordinance ought not to have come from the BNP when the nation pretty much overwhelmingly agrees that reforms in the political process are today an absolute necessity. We will therefore reiterate here that the nation deserves better than the obstructionist position put forth by the BNP.
In this context, we note with happiness the response of the Awami League, which has after careful re-evaluation come round to accepting, by and large, the RPO. We now urge the BNP to do the same and thus make it possible for democracy to make a new beachhead in Bangladesh. The national priority today is a revival of elected, transparent and accountable government. Anyone or any party putting up roadblocks to the attainment of such a grand endeavour will really be doing all of us a huge disfavour.