In Bangladesh, an inauspicious rebirth for parliamentary democracy

From The Economist:

Parliament in Dhaka was this week restored to its intended use; parliamentarians, sadly, returned to their old abuses. A makeshift prison for much of the two years, ending in December 2008, that Bangladesh was ruled by an army-backed interim government, the parliament complex housed the leaders of the two big political parties: Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League (AL) and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

On January 25th, however, a month after the league won a general election by a landslide, parliament reconvened for the first time. True to old form, the opposition BNP walked out in protest. The reason was bizarre: it claimed that the president, Iajuddin Ahmed-whom the BNP had picked in late 2006 as the head of a caretaker government to oversee (and rig) an election due in January 2007-had violated the constitution by failing to hold the vote on time. Three days later, it walked out again, miffed at seating arrangements.

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