All parties need to join political process to make democracy work: FM
Democracy has been functioning smoothly in Bangladesh for the last 13 years: Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said all political parties need to come to a political process to make democracy participatory.
"Other than this (elections), no alternative is known to me," he said while responding to a question at a media briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which was arranged ahead of the 5th BIMSTEC Summit.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam, Secretary (East) Mashfee Binte Shams and Additional Secretary (SAARC & BIMSTEC) Md Shamsul Haque were present.
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Momen said Bangladesh is a big promoter of democracy and anybody can cast his or her vote freely in polls and claimed that vote rigging has come down significantly with the introduction of voters' ID with photographs.
Momen, an MP from Sylhet, said democracy has been functioning smoothly in Bangladesh for the last 13 years.
"Now, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, we have democratic environment. We have voter IDs with photos. Our people are mentally very democratic. They want to participate and around 70-80% of people vote in our elections," Momen said.
He said they believe in fairness and justice and don't believe in any kind of discrimination "We are free of discrimination."
Terming Bangladesh's relations with the US very cordial, Momen said there is potential to deepen relations with the US much more in the coming days. "The relations will deepen because we have shared values of democracy."
He said during the visit of US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on 20 March, Bangladesh demanded withdrawal of the sanctions on elite force RAB and individuals and shared the remedial measures that Bangladesh has taken to improve their performance.
"There were no deaths in the last three months. They (the US) are very happy. We said we are taking remedial measures. In fact, we have inbuilt measures. We have a judicial process. Sometimes it did not work right," Momen said.
Momen is scheduled to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on 4 April marking the 50 years of diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
