Rahman set to become next Bangladesh Prez

Zillur Rahman, a senior leader of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, is set to become Bangladesh's next president as he stands alone in the race for the country's highest office, officials said on Wednesday.

Election Commission officials have said the commission was expected to declare Rahman, who is in his late 70s, as Bangladesh's 19th president, as the last date for withdrawal of nomination paper was to expire later today and he is the lone candidate nominated by the ruling Awami League.

Rahman replaces Iajuddin Ahmed, a former university professor and soil scientist, who became the titular head of the country during former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four government in 2002.

"The stage is set for Rahman," a Bangabhaban presidential palace spokesman said.

"Rahman is one of the country's senior most politician who has contributed to country's all democratic campaigns since the 1952 Language Movement... He has the priority to become the president," Hasina earlier this month said announcing his nomination.

Rahman, a close aid of Hasina's father and Bangladesh's founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was regarded as a key figure in consolidating the Awami League's unity at different times including the post 1975 period of political wilderness after the assassination of Bangabandhu along with most of his family members in a military coup.

He was also widely regarded for his role in keeping the party united in the past two years of emergency rules when Hasina was in jail.

AL, in a special working committee meeting, bade farewell to Rahman with Hasina presenting him the party crest acknowledging his contribution to the party over the decades.

Party leaders offered him a standing ovation while Hasina herself readout the citation in an emotion choked voice.

"The party for the first time in its history formally honoured a presidential candidate... the party did not get such scope earlier," party spokesman and Local Government Minster Syed Ashraful Islam later told reporters at a briefing late yesterday.