Bangladesh Prime Minister says polls under her administration

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Saturday that elections would take place in 2014 despite a boycott threat by opponents who want the government to restore a caretaker system to oversee the poll. Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia at a mass rally last month criticised the government for abolishing a 15-year-old system under which elections were overseen by independent caretaker administrations after the end of a government's five-year term.
Hasina on Saturday told reporters at a briefing that her administration would not reinstate the system. "The polls will be held and the people will join," she said. Hasina asked Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition, to come to the parliament and talk. "Let (her) come to parliament, speak there and discussions will be held in parliament," she said. Bangladesh, a parliamentary system of government, returned to democracy through a 2008 election after nearly two years of a state of emergency.