AL Council: Leaders to ask Joy to be future leader

The ruling Awami League will focus on electing the party's future leadership and the next parliamentary elections in its national council next week.

The AL leaders will push for new leaders from Bangabandhu's family so they can take the party's helm in future, party insiders said.

Leaders will demand that prime minister's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, a US-educated software engineer, is given a leadership role to enable him to learn and lead the AL or represent the party in various international forums.

Besides, Sheikh Rehana's son Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby would also be in the leadership. The party chief and her family members would decide about the posts of the two cousins after the October 22-23 council.

For the first time in the AL's history, Hasina's sister Rehana, son Joy, daughter Saima Wazed Putul, son-in-law Khandaker Mashrur Hossain, and Rehana's son Bobby have been made party councillors.

The PM for the last couple of years had been thinking of inducting her family members into the party. Her father and Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of her family members was brutally murdered on August 15, 1975.

According to party insiders, top leaders of some friendly countries also suggested the the PM grooms the next leadership so that they could carry on the “legacy” of their long-term relationship.

Close aides of Hasina said as she strengthened her position in the party after the January 5, 2014 national elections, she opted to bring her family members to politics. Joy has already been made her adviser while Rehana, Bobby and Putul assist her in different capacities.   

The AL's council preparatory committee recommended the party increase the number of posts of presidium members, joint general secretaries and organising secretaries.

In a recent meeting of the party's council preparatory committee, AL presidium member Obaidul Quader called upon party leaders to focus on Joy as the party's future leader. He asked the leaders not to use anyone's photos in posters, banners or placards except for those of Bangabandhu and his family members.      

AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury said some party meetings were told that their future leaders would be Joy and Bobby. The party men were eagerly waiting to see them in leadership roles.

About the council, he said it would focus on the leadership of Hasina who has been leading the party for 35 years defying many odds. She now has leading roles in different international forums.

The party president has been in politics for 50 years. She was elected the vice-president of the students' union of Eden Girls College in 1966.

A senior minister and also an AL presidium member told The Daily Star that the premier wanted to prepare the party's future leadership through this council. To this end, she has planned to pick several new young leaders, including a few women, who would work for the party in the next parliamentary elections in 2019. 

Party sources in the USA and the UK conveyed a similar impression.      

“The presence of Bangabandhu's family members would add a new dimension to the party's council. The news of their participation raised high hopes among the party men,” AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said.

All party men have long been expecting to see them in party leadership, he added.

Over 6,500 party councilors were expected to join the AL national council at the city's Suhrawardy Udyan. Hasina recently hinted that she would be happy if she was relieved of the party chief's post this time. But the AL leaders said they would never accept such a decision.  

Discussions were underway in the party whether Syed Ashraful Islam would continue as the AL general secretary for a third consecutive term or Obaidul Quader would replace him.