Downfall
A wide umbrella of political parties united against Ershad. Zia's widow Khaleda Zia now led the BNP, which allied itself with the Awami League, led by Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina; Awami League stopped its support to Ershad and resigned from the Parliament in 1987. The leftist parties and groups remained keen to keep other parties on the track towards the ousting of Ershad's regime. The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and other parties also joined the opposition ranks. The strikes and protests called by the opposition groups paralysed the state and its economy. Under pressure, Ershad dissolved the parliament on 7 December 1987 but the fresh elections were again boycotted by the opposition. An intensifying opposition campaign launched by the students ultimately forced Ershad to step down on 6 December 1990. The West, that backed him for almost a decade, no longer supported the Non-Socialist President after the fall of USSR
He handed over power to Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed to form an acceptable neutral Caretaker Government; this was a move that was made for the very first time in the country's history and was not in the constitution at the time. Shahabuddin immediately placed Ershad under arrest. However this act by Shahabuddin was declared illegal by the country's Supreme Court later on. Lt General Nuruddin Khan unlike his predecessor Lt Gen Atiqur Rahman did not back the President. In 1996 the newly elected Government of Awami League selected Shahabuddin as the President and Lt General Nuruddin Khan became the Energy Minister, only to be dismissed for gross mismanagement.
Although anti-Ershad sentiment was strong, H M Ershad contested the election from jail and still won all 5 different constituencies he contested from in 1991. The new government led by the BNP's Khaleda Zia instituted a number of corruption charges. Ershad was convicted in two charges till date, while all others were dismissed and thrown out of court.
In the 1991 and 1996 elections, Ershad again won from five different constituencies from jail twice. In 1996 he provided his support to the Awami League and formed a government of consensus although his party sat on the opposition side of the parliament.
He was released from jail on 9 January 1997 by the government but only after unconditional support was provided to Awami League by the former President.
Read more about this topic: Hussain Muhammad Ershad
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)