By Anis Ahmed

Dhaka - A 14-party alliance renewed its threat on Wednesday to launch a third transport blockade across Bangladesh next week after election officials ignored its demands for a delay and set parliamentary polls for January 21.

Similar blockades and protests have led to violence in which at least 40 people have been killed in the past month and the alliance rejected a plea for restraint by Bangladesh's 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Professor Muhammad Yunus.

The action by the alliance led by Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League, is to press for the removal of election officials it accuses of bias towards Begum Khaleda Zia - who ended her five-year term as prime minister in late October - and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

"We will go ahead with the planned blockade from next Sunday unless all our demands to ensure a free and impartial election are accepted by Saturday," alliance co-ordinator Abdul Jalil told reporters.

The alliance issued its threat despite an appeal by Yunus for it to call off the blockade, and concern expressed by United Nations envoy Craig Jenness over mounting political tensions before the election in the impoverished South Asian country.

Jenness, director of the UN Electoral Assistance Division, expressed the concern in talks with President Iajuddin Ahmed and Sheikh Hasina.

He arrived in Dhaka on Wednesday for a three-day visit to assess the situation before the poll, after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Bangladeshi leaders to work together to ensure free and fair elections.

Thousands of alliance activists on Wednesday surrounded Bangladesh's main administrative secretariat in Dhaka, choking streets and preventing officials from going in or out.

"It's a total gherao (siege) of the secretariat," one witness said, adding that authorities deployed hundreds of riot police to try to prevent trouble.

Published on the Web by IOL on 2006-11-29 23:19:45