Both Hasina’s Awami League and Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are contenders for power in the next elections due by the end of 2008.

But the military-backed non-party caretaker government, which had advised the two leaders to go abroad, is unlikely to release them before the elections.

“Both the BNP and the Awami League may jointly start agitation to get their leaders released,” said Hannan Shah, Khaleda Zia’s advisor. “There can’t be free and fair elections with Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina in jail.”
Hannan Shah, a retired brigadier, seems to be acting on the advice of Khaleda Zia, but a strong group, known as ‘reformists’, is ready to go to polls without Khaleda Zia.

Hours before arrest on September 3, Khaleda Zia sacked the party secretary-general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who leads the reformists. She appointed Delwar Hossain as the new secretary-general.

There are also two factions in the Awami League, one led by Zillur Rahman, and the other by Amir Hossain Amu.
Sheikh Hasina made Zillur Rahman acting president of the party hours before she was arrested on July 16. Amu has the support of three other presidium members Abdur Razzak, Tofael Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta.

Amu, who is now in Singapore for the treatment of his wife, is willing to go ahead without Sheikh Hasina.
Zillur Rahman, on the other hand, said there can not be any reform in the party until Sheikh Hasina is released.
He feels that his party and the BNP could possibly work together for the release of the leaders if there are basic similarities between them.

“Our party (AL) has its own principles, ideology and objectives and  the BNP propagates its own,” he said. “Unity of the two parties will only be possible if there are some similarities.”
Analysts say that they would reach an understanding only when ban on open politics is lifted.