Word: ershad
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Soldier, politician and poet, Hussain Mohammad Ershad is a man who has taken pride in his sense of balance. For almost nine years he managed to maintain his footing in the notoriously slippery ground of Bangladesh politics. Last week, however, the President ran out of ground to stand on. Resigning in a dramatic late-night announcement, he touched off jubilant dancing in the streets by people who viewed his humiliation as poetic justice...
...Ershad is gone, Ershad is gone! Burn his throne!" screamed a flag-waving crowd in Dhaka as firecrackers exploded across the capital. "Catch the thief! Don't let him go!" chanted other marchers. But Ershad wasn't going anywhere. He even personally swore in his successor: Shahabuddin Ahmed, chief justice of the Supreme Court, whom opposition leaders had nominated as caretaker President. Said Ershad: "I want peace to return to society...
...movement to oust the ex-general began in early October. By late November, strikes and demonstrations had reached such fury that Ershad imposed a state of emergency, a stratagem he had used twice before since his seizure of power...
...stick failed to save him this time. Doctors, lawyers, civil servants and merchant seamen refused to work. Journalists and television actors walked off their jobs. Shops remained shuttered, and curfew-defying protesters took to the streets. Said opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia: "The autocratic Ershad had to surrender to the people's will...
...women who head the main opposition groups -- Sheik Hasina Wazed of the Awami League and Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party -- but the two remained undaunted. As it happens, Hasina is the daughter of a slain former President, and Zia is the widow of another. Vowed Hasina: "Ershad's last days have arrived. We shall not leave the streets until the dictator is removed...