Suppression of opposition

AGAINST the backdrop of recent crackdown on the main opposition BNP leading to wholesale imprisonment of most of its senior leaders, the opposition camp has been made virtually leaderless. This kind of suppression of the opposition is quite unprecedented and unacceptable in a democracy.

Worse yet, the situation has further vitiated the already toxic political environment of confrontation between the ruling party and the opposition thereby rendered the scope for any rapprochement and dialogue between them to overcome the prevailing political impasse next to impossible.

The way the police arrested senior opposition political leaders was totally devoid of sensibilities and respect for senior members of a major political party. Not only that, the senior leaders of BNP so arrested were charged with criminal offences like torching vehicles, assaulting police and the like. If anything, levelling such ridiculous charges against senior opposition leaders has only made light of the allegations and further damaged the law-enforcement department's credibility in the public eye.

The police and with them the system of justice will thus lose credibility, making it harder for them to punish criminal offenders in society.

But what does the government hope to achieve by coming down so heavily on the main opposition thereby making it virtually dysfunctional? If anything, it is only creating an unnecessary political vacuum in the country with unpredictable consequences. Moreover, this will only harden the opposition's will and destroy all hope of any scope for accommodating them in a dialogue to find a way out of the ongoing political crisis.

The government must shun this undemocratic, oppressive and conflict generating path with the opposition with the next general election only months away, and get to the business of coming to terms with each other to set the ball for a negotiated settlement rolling.