As one of the two most important persons in the post-Uprising dispensation of Bangladesh, Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman's words obviously carry a lot of weight during this period of transition to what will hopefully be a democracy via the next election. Speaking at a programme this week to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the carnage at Pilkhana, the headquarters of the erstwhile BDR, the general delivered a stern and at times exasperating address that quickly became the talk all over town, and even across the border.

It is important to set the context a bit here. Although the event hosted by the Retired Army Officers' Welfare Association was expressly aimed at the army members and their families, including those martyred at Pilkhana 16 years ago in that unspeakable massacre of officers, the General must have known it would be carried to a wider audience, and what we saw was that clearly, some parts were aimed at the political dispensation. He also spoke at a time when the law and order situation was on a particularly slippery slope. This probably explains the sternness in his tone, as he emphasised the importance of remaining united, of holding on to their unity, and warned of the dire consequences in the event of failure, that he said could endanger even the sovereignty of the state. He did avoid the specifics of the possible consequences though, preferring to approximate it with "Believe me, you don't want to go in that direction."

The Army chief made two other important points that may be expected to influence the immediate future of the country. On the possible date of the next election, he said he remained largely in alignment with Chief Adviser, and saw no reason to express doubt or alarm over the 18-month deadline he had previously set, which has another year to run still. As the interim government has struggled to get a grip on the law and order situation in particular, the calls have been getting louder for a December 2025 election. The chief adviser's press secretary this week suggested December 2025-March 2026 as a possible timeframe for the polls to be held.

The other important point was the emphasis he put on the need for the election to be 'free, fair and inclusive,' repeating it twice over for good effect. He said once again that the CA agreed with him on this point. Tagging 'inclusive' at the end was felt to be significant, and there is no scope for disagreement on this. It is meant to communicate that the Army is not in favour of banning any political party from running in the election. This is something the students and other leaders of the July-August Uprising of 2024 have been demanding - specifically that the Awami League be banned as punishment for destroying the country's electoral mechanism, their general misrule over 15 years from 2009-2024, and the mass killings perpetrated under them by the security agencies as part of the hardline crackdown on the student-led movement last summer, which even a UN investigation has found to have been carried out at the behest of the political leadership. Yet even they, notably, voiced their opposition to a ban on any political party as the solution.