NEW DELHI: Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina had not resigned as prime minister before fleeing to India this week as anti-government protesters marched towards her official residence, her son and adviser said. Reuters early on Saturday.
Hasina has been holed up in New Delhi since Monday following an uprising that killed about 300 people, many of them students, ending her 15-year uninterrupted rule in the country of 170 million people.
“My mother never officially resigned. She didn't have time,” said Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed. Reuters from Washington.
“She had planned to make a statement and resign, but protesters started marching towards the prime minister's residence and there was no time. My mother had not even packed her bags. According to the constitution, she remains the prime minister of Bangladesh.”
He said that although the president had dissolved parliament after consulting with military chiefs and opposition politicians, the formation of an interim government without the prime minister formally resigning “can be challenged in court.”
Wazed also said Hasina's Awami League party will contest the upcoming elections, which he said are due within three months.
“I am sure that the Awami League will come to power. If not, we will be the opposition. Either way is fine,” he said.
He said he was encouraged by a recent statement by Khaleda Zia, head of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a foe of Hasina, that there should be no revenge or retaliation after Hasina's flight.
“I was very happy to hear Mrs. Khaleda Zia's statement that we must forget the past,” Wazed said. “Let us forget the past. Let us not pursue the politics of revenge. We will have to work together, whether it is a unity government or not.”
He said he was “ready to work with the BNP… to have democratic elections in Bangladesh and restore democracy and work with them to ensure that in the future we have a peaceful democracy where there are free and fair elections.”
“I think politics and negotiations are very important,” he said. “We can discuss, we can agree to disagree and we can always reach a compromise.”
Asked if he would be the Awami League's prime ministerial candidate, he said: “My mother was going to retire after this term anyway. If the party wants me to do it, maybe. I will definitely consider it.”
He said his mother was ready to face trial in her country, as demanded by the students who led the uprising.
“The threat of arrest has never scared my mother before,” she said. “My mother hasn't done anything wrong. Just because people in her government have done illegal things doesn't mean my mother ordered it. That doesn't mean my mother is responsible for it.”
He did not say who in the government was responsible for allowing people to be shot during the protests.
“A government is a huge machine,” Wazed said. “Those responsible must be brought to justice. My mother did not at all order anyone to commit violence against protesters. The police were trying to stop the violence, but some officers used excessive force.”
“Our government immediately, and I was part of those conversations, I also told my mother, we have to immediately tell (our student wing) not to attack, to stop the violence,” he said.
“We suspended the police officers who shot at the students. We did everything we could.”
He said he would come home whenever he wanted.
“I have never done anything illegal. How can anyone stop me?” he said. “Political parties are not going to disappear. They cannot destroy us. Without our help, without our supporters, they will not be able to bring stability to Bangladesh.”
