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DHAKA : Bangladesh's newly-installed interim government is to meet for the first time, officials said, as it resumes efforts to stage free and fair elections after previous attempts ended in a state of emergency.
New interim government chief Fakhruddin Ahmed is to hold his first cabinet meeting later in the day, following unrest that has left at least 35 people dead.
He replaced the embattled President Iajuddin Ahmed, who stepped aside last week after cancelling planned elections.
Five members of the new advisory council -- effectively the cabinet --- were sworn in late Saturday in a ceremony at Dhaka's presidential palace.
They are a newspaper owner, two leading business people, a former chairman of the Security Exchange Commission, and a former anti-corruption commission official.
The remaining members of the non-party ten-member council were due to be appointed over the next few days.
They face the difficult task of winning the confidence of Bangladesh's feuding political parties.
The country has been gripped for months by a bitter political impasse over opposition allegations that the outgoing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) tried to rig elections scheduled for January 22.
The BNP's Ahmed appointed himself as interim government chief after his party and the main opposition Awami League failed to agree on a compromise candidate amid escalating violence.
But his tenure as head of the non-party body responsible for organising elections was dogged by opposition accusations that he was biased against them.
He imposed the state of emergency on Thursday before stepping down as head of the temporary administration. He continues, however, as the country's figurehead president.
The original caretaker government, which took power in late October at the end of the BNP's five-year mandate, was also forced to resign.
The independent Daily Star newspaper described the country's new temporary leader as a man of "personal integrity" with an illustrious career behind him at the World Bank and as head of Bangladesh's central bank.
It said his appointment should generate the confidence needed to stage the elections.
The business community, meanwhile, welcomed the state of emergency as a possible end to the disruption that has repeatedly brought the impoverished nation to a standstill.
It has been badly hit by more than six months of crippling protests, national strikes and blockades called by the opposition to highlight their allegations that the BNP-appointed election commission had drawn up a voter list containing 14 million fake names.
"Over the past six months, political instability has cost us millions of dollars in export orders. Our exports were on the brink of disaster," said S.M. Fazlul Haque, the president of the country's biggest export group.
"We welcome the state of emergency because it will bring stability to the country and at least ensure a congenial atmosphere for business," he said. – AFP/ir
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