The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pulack Ghatack

New and young faces dominate the new cabinet that sworn in yesterday, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina picked up none but Begum Matia Chowdhury, Syed Ashraful Islam and Abul Hossain for her second term rule.

Preliminary observation shows that the new cabinet is characterised by moderate in size, minus by stalwarts, no inclusion of accused and reformists and crowded by freshers.

Those who dared to raise voice against the "attacks" on Sheikh Hasina and other Awami League leaders during the emerging rule of the outgoing army-backed government, are seemed to have been rewarded this time.

AL presidium members Abdur Razzaq, Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta all of whom earned the name as "reformists," after emerging as critics of Sheikh Hasina in the early days of emergency rule, could not enter into the cabinet.

Two other most prominent absentees from the Cabinet are AL general secretary Abdul Jalil and presidium member Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury.

All of the AL heavyweights were in Hasina's previous government that had ruled the country since 1996 till 2001 when they lost the polls to BNP.

Non-induction of Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon and JSD president Hasanul Huq Inu, both of whom were elected MP from the AL-led Grand Alliance, in the cabinet was also conspicuous.

Of the 32-member medium-sized council of ministers, 23 are Ministers and eight State Ministers, most of them new and young faces. Sheikh Hasina picked none in the cabinet who have cases pending with. Air Vice-Marshal (retd) AK Khandaker, the second-in-command of the freedom fighters during the Liberation War, also took oath to the cabinet as a senior minister.

The Liberation War veteran, under the banner of Sector Commanders' Forum, was involved in a desperate campaign for bringing the 1971 war criminals to justice that helped a serious defeat of BNP-Jamaat alliance in the December 29 election.

GM Qader, younger brother of former president HM Ershad, is representing as the lone member from Jatiya Party, the second big party in the winning alliance.

Abul Maal Abdul Muhit, a former finance minister of Ershad's cabinet in the 1980s, was another notable name included in the cabinet.

Five females, the highest number in Bangladesh history, are included in the relatively small cabinet. They are: Sheikh Hasina, Begum Matiya Chowdhury, Shahara Khatun, Dr Dipumoni and Begum Munnujan Sufian.

The installation of the Hasina government completed the country's transition to democratic rule from the two-year-old military-backed interim regime that had taken over following the 1/11 changeover.

Syed Ashraful Islam and Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj sons of two former prominent leaders of the party who were slain inside jail in 1975 were also included in the new cabinet.

Ministers Barrister Shafique Ahmed and Dilip Barua and State Minister Yafez Osman were inducted from technocrat quota.

Hasina, the eldest daughter of country's slain founding father and first President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is the only leader of the Awami League to become Prime Minister twice in the eventful history of the party founded in 1948.

Her Awami League bagged 230 out of all 300 parliament seats in the parliament election while the 15-party grand alliance got 262 seats.