Yazuddin is BNP's candidate

The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has nominated Yazuddin Ahmed, a former professor of Dhaka University, as its nominee for the September 16 presidential election. The ruling party yesterday filed four nomination papers for Prof. Ahmed at the Election Commission.

The BNP Secretary-General and Local Government Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan; Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Barrister Moudud Ahmed; Chief Whip Khandaker Delwar Hossain; and BNP standing committee member K. M. Obaidur Rahman proposed the candidature of Prof. Ahmed for the presidency.

Yesterday was the last date for filing nomination papers. Today is the date for scrutiny and September 8 is the date for withdrawal.

The Election Commission is expected to declare Prof. Ahmed as President uncontested after scrutiny of his nomination papers today. Two more non-party candidates also submitted nominations yesterday. But election officials said their nominations were faulty as they were not proposed by any Member of Parliament.

On Tuesday night, the BNP standing committee, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, nominated Prof. Ahmed as the candidate for the presidency.

The president's post was vacated following the resignation of Prof. A.Q.M. Badruddoza Chowdhury on June 21 when the BNP parliamentary party urged him to step down as he did not visit the grave of the late President Ziaur Rahman and called him a "declarer of independence" on his last death anniversary.

Adds AFP: Bangladesh's president is elected by parliament and as the opposition is boycotting the poll, Prof. Ahmed is virtually certain to become the country's 14th president.

The main opposition Awami League party, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, said they did not care who the new president was because Chowdhury had been "thrown out".

"After President Badruddoza Chowdhury was thrown out in violation of the constitution, a person who succeeds him is no more important as it is clear that he has to work under party compulsion and perform his duties in a partisan way," Saber Hossain Chowdhury, political secretary to Sheikh Hasina, sai.

"There is a question of accepting or supporting him as we do not want to give legitimacy to the constitutional violation in forcing out President Chowdhury."

Security was tightened yesterday at Ahmed's residence as streams of BNP leaders and activists and journalists crowded in to see him.

"I never even dreamt that I would be president," Ahmed, 72, told reporters.

Appealing to Bangladeshis to join hands to create a better country, he said: "I want to work to build a poverty-free and developed Bangladesh.

"My thrust, if I become the president, will be to develop the country's education system," Ahmed said.

"I look forward to seeing the national parliament working and thriving with all parties represented there."

The would-be president had not had a hint that he was in the running for president until Prime Minister Khaleda Zia invited him to her office late on Tuesday and made the surprise offer, which he immediately accepted, official sources said.

"We chose a man who is known for honesty, character and an educationist par excellence," said Law Minister Moudud Ahmed.