Former Information and Broadcasting adviser and close associate of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, Mahfuj Alam, has sharply criticised Bangladesh’s interim government, accusing it of failing to establish a new political order by relying on and compromising with forces of the old system.

Speaking at a discussion titled State Reconstruction and the Relevance of a Referendum at Dhaka University yesterday evening, Mr. Mahfuj said meaningful reform was impossible while the same actors remained in power. He said, a new order cannot be built by keeping the people of the old order in power.

He also accused the government of shielding powerful oligarchs and propagandists, claiming that financiers of the old system were neither arrested nor prosecuted despite continuing to spread misinformation. Mahfuj further revealed that he had cut ties with the National Citizen Party (NCP), a new political platform that once raised public hopes, saying it had taken a wrong step.