Dhaka, Bangladesh – The president Thursday declared a state of emergency, stepped down as leader of Bangladesh’s caretaker government and postponed this month’s elections following violent protests by a key political alliance that has said it would boycott the vote.
The government also indefinitely imposed an overnight curfew on Dhaka, the capital, and 60 other towns and cities.
The dramatic announcements by President Iajuddin Ahmed were the latest twists in a tumultuous few months marked by increasing strife between rival political camps that has left at least 34 people dead since October.
Ahmed did not say when the elections, originally scheduled for Jan. 22, would be held.
One of his advisers, Fazlul Haque, will serve as head of the caretaker government, said Ahmed, who will remain president, a largely ceremonial role.
Densely populated and grindingly poor, this country of 144 million people has a political climate so bitter that the constitution stipulates a caretaker government take over 90 days before elections to oversee the voting. But a 19-party alliance dominated by the Awami League, the main opposition party, has charged the caretaker government with favoring the alliance’s rivals.
