<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday said that Awami League prefers dictatorship and feudalism as the party does not believe in democracy and the rights of people.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Speaking at a training programme for the female leaders and workers of BNP at the party chairperson's Gulshan office, he also said delegations from different countries are coming to Bangladesh to talk about elections and human rights as the Awami League government has destroyed democracy by holding two ‘flawed’ and 'lopsided' elections in 2014 and 2018.</div><div><br></div><div>&nbsp;“Awami League has a characteristic problem that they do not believe in democracy. They choose dictatorship and feudalism. They have a mindset that there‘s no one else in the country except them and they’re the only owners of the country,” he said.</div><div><br></div><div>The BNP leader said it is unfortunate for the nation that there is no democracy in the country while the democratic space for the political parties has been destroyed.</div><div><br></div><div>He questioned whether there is any democratic party in the world except BNP, whose four million leaders and workers are facing false political cases and the chief of the party has been convicted on false charges and all the senior leaders of the party are facing false cases on fake charges.</div><div><br></div><div>Citing a newspaper report, Fakhrul alleged that the government is trying to speed up the trial in the cases filed against him and their party chief Khaleda Zia. “They’ve instructed the police authorities and even the Law Ministry issued a letter to the judges to speed up the trial and dispose of the cases (against opposition leaders and activists)…the rulers are doing this as they don’t believe in democracy.&nbsp; They want to hang onto power and they don’t respect and count the other political parties.”</div><div><br></div><div>Fakhrul said they have been carrying out a movement for the restoration of democracy in a democratic manner as the usurper government held two elections completely deceiving people by force.</div><div><br></div><div>“Competitive elections are the key elements to uphold the democratic practice…but the rulers in this country talk about democracy, but they never practice it,” he said.</div><div><br></div><div>The BNP leader said there are now many discussions about the frequent trips of delegations from different countries to Bangladesh.</div><div><br></div><div>“An American delegation is coming today (Tuesday) while a team of EU has already arrived here to know about human rights democracy and elections here. Why do they come to Bangladesh? Because there’s no democracy here and there’re no (credible) elections and elections are not held (fairly) here,” Fakhrul observed, reports UNB.</div><div><br></div><div>He also said a level-playing field having equal opportunity for all political parties is necessary for a good election, but it is not possible to ensure when the government tries to suppress opposition leaders and activists by arresting, jailing, killing, and implicating them in false cases and when it tries to prevent the opposition from function and holding their programmes by using the state machinery.</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>