The National Citizens’ Committee, a recently launched platform of citizens who were directly involved in the July student-people movement that ensured Sheikh Hasina’s fall, on Saturday said that they were not satisfied with the one-month performance of Professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government.
‘The performance of the interim government is not at the expected level... it is true that they [government] faced various chaoses during this time,’ Muhammad Nasiruddin Patwari, the convener of the platform, said at a press conference.
NCC organised the press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital. This was the first press conference of the platform after its formation on September 8.
Urging the Yunus-led government to be more visible and effective, Nasir said, ‘We hoped that the interim government would do its works quickly and hand the state power over to the elected representatives.’
‘They [interim government] have just started working. We will give them a time limit when their works will become visible and the country’s people will decide when the time of this government will be over,’ he said.
He said that the government was formed as an outcome of a mass uprising and, that is why, the government should keep the matter in mind.
‘If otherwise,’ he warned, ‘they [the interim government] will have to face the consequences.’
In a written statement, NCC spokesperson Samantha Sharmin said that the government’s failure to prepare a complete list of martyred people in the July movement made them frustrated.
‘We are not a political party, but our initiative is political,’ she said and added that the platform would keep the dreams of around 1,000 martyred students and 30,000 injured people alive.
She said that Bangladesh was freed from the hands of the fascist government, which ruled the country for 16 years, in the student-led uprising on August 5.
‘We are passing 53 years of our independence. Even after so long years, we have no national unity on any issue. This is the biggest trouble for us. We are ambivalent about everything. Even, basic state functions, such as peaceful transfer of power, have become impossible here,’ she said.
Various domestic and foreign beneficiary groups took advantage of this, she said.
Due to the lack of national unity on any issue even after so many years of independence, a democratic state system could not be created in Bangladesh, she said.
‘So far, there has been no consensus on the process through which power will be transferred after every five years. An important task of this National Citizens’ Committee is to create national unity in the reconstruction of Bangladesh taking all political parties and people of the country together,’ she said.
She said that though the fascist government had fallen, the fascist system had not disappeared from the country.
‘Fascism is not a government. It is a system that is sustained through various laws, institutions and cultural and socio-economic practices. We want the abolition of that fascist system,’ she said.
She said that the NCC would work to ensure a new democratic political settlement by abolishing the fascist system.
‘We want to ensure such a settlement, where no head of government in the future will need to flee like Sheikh Hasina,’ she said.
‘We want to unite all citizens including youths on this platform to build Bangladesh for tomorrow. We want to involve the people in the reconstruction of the state. We want to make the desire of the people to form a democratic society a reality,’ she said.
NCC member secretary Akhtar Hossain, among other leaders, was also present.