Bangladesh: BNP puts conditional support to limit PM’s tenure to 10 years

Dhaka: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has agreed to a proposal to limit the tenure of the Prime Minister of the country to a maximum of 10 years in a lifetime, subject to a certain condition, according to local media reports.

The party opposed the formation of any constitutional committee, including the recently proposed Constitutional and Statutory Institution Appointments Committee, stating that such a move would undermine the authority of the executive.

The remarks were made by the BNP Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed on Wednesday following a meeting with the National Consensus Commission at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka.

“We are in agreement that a Prime Minister’s tenure should not exceed 10 years in their lifetime. However, we do not support a system where the executive branch is entirely controlled by a constitutional appointments committee,” Bangladeshi leading daily, The Dhaka Tribune, quoted the BNP leader as saying.

Meanwhile, National Consensus Commission Vice Chairman Ali Riaz said the discussions on the Prime Minister’s tenure issue have remained unresolved so far.

“We could not reach any consensus or conclusion in this regard. Because the final decision over the PM’s tenure can’t be taken until we can’t reach a final decision over the appointment committee for the constitutional and statutory institutions,” he said, addressing a press briefing on Wednesday.

Riaz also announced that the National Consensus Commission has withdrawn its proposal to form a National Constitutional Council (NCC) and has instead proposed the formation of a ‘Constitutional and Statutory Institution Appointments Committee’, which BNP has opposed.

After discussions on the proposal to form a committee for appointments to constitutional institutions, Riaz proposed to bring the issue of the Prime Minister’s term into discussion.

However, BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed said that his party favoured the proposal that a person cannot be the Prime Minister for more than 10 years but does not support the proposed formation of a committee for appointments to any constitutional and statutory institution. (IANS)

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