The Government of Bangladesh announced yesterday that troops deployed across the country to enforce emergency rule would return to their barracks in the run-up to parliamentary elections due next month.

Emergency powers would be relaxed to allow political parties “full freedom” to campaign, said retired Major-General Abdul Matin, who is Home Affairs Minister in the interim Government.

However, the state of emergency will remain until the poll on December 18 and troops will be redeployed to prevent violence on election day, the Election Commission said.

The troops were deployed in January 2007 when President Ahmed, backed by the army, declared a state of emergency, cancelled elections and installed a caretaker Government.

The interim administration has vowed to clean up a political system long mired in feuding between the women who lead the two main political parties, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed. The Government has detained 200 senior political and business figures on corruption charges in the past 20 months, including the two “battling begums”, although they have both been freed on bail.

The Government says that it still needs emergency powers to ensure a peaceful and orderly election in a mostly Muslim country of 150 million people with a long history of political violence. “We will take every measure needed, including deployment of troops, so voters feel confident of their safety,” said A.T.M.Shamsul Huda, the Chief Election Commissioner.

General Moeen Ahmed, the army chief, told Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, in Dhaka on Sunday that the military would not challenge the election result. Mr Ban called for a fair, objective and credible poll. “I hope it can ensure a smooth and peaceful transition to democracy,” he said.

The main political parties want the emergency lifted immediately, saying that the election cannot be free and fair if they are denied civil liberties, such as the right to hold public gatherings.

Mrs Zia's Bangladesh National Party (BNP) also accuses the Election Commission of favouring Mrs Wajed's Awami League. Awami leaders have said that Mrs Wajed will take part in the election, but the BNP is yet to confirm its participation.

Mrs Zia's husband and Mrs Wajed's father were national leaders who were assassinated in the bloody cycle of coups and counter-coups that followed Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Mrs Zia, 61, and Mrs Wajed, 59, have served alternately as prime minister and leader of the opposition ever since they joined hands briefly to topple the country's last military dictator in 1991.

The Government arrested them both on corruption charges last year and tried to force them into exile, but was forced to back down.

Mrs Wajed's party said yesterday that she would return from the United States, where she has been on medical parole, on Thursday to lead her party in the legislative elections.

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