Bangladesh's controversial election chief has bowed to pressure to step aside, the president said late on Wednesday, after thousands of opposition supporters poured onto the streets to demand his removal.
President Iajuddin Ahmed said election commissioner M.A. Aziz agreed to take leave so that the interim government could hold general elections in January without him overseeing them.
"The chief election commissioner has agreed to take three months' leave on condition that he is going to stay in the country during the three months and the government ensures his full security," Ahmed said in a televised speech. The development fulfils a key demand of the main opposition Awami League and its 13 leftist allies, who had said fair elections were impossible with Aziz in place and threatened to boycott the polls unless he was removed.
Their supporters staged bloody rallies and blocked key roads linking cities and railway lines in protests that paralysed the country for weeks.
The president said he expected the political crisis was now over after securing Aziz's removal and making changes to the election commission including appointing two new commissioners.
"Now I think his decision will end the political deadlock," the president said, urging the political parties to prepare for the polls.
Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil said he would hold a meeting with his leftist allies Thursday to mull the developments, after earlier vowing to continue the protests, saying the changes did not go far enough.
Jalil, responding to the president's speech, earlier demanded that Aziz's three deputies also take leave.
"Still there are more controversial men in the election commission under whom it is impossible to hold fair elections," he said. He later said supporters would stage a victory rally in Dhaka as well as hold their meeting.
The Awami League has accused Aziz of seeking to tilt the elections in favour of the outgoing government, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), by drawing up a voter list with at least 10 million fake voters.
The opposition has staged mass daily protests and a nation-wide transport blockade since Monday to force Aziz to quit.
Thousands of opposition supporters earlier poured on the streets as speculation mounted about Aziz's future.
"They are in a festive mood," said deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Aurnangjeb Mahbub.
But a supporter of the outgoing government was stabbed to death by Awami League activists in the northern town of Bogra, police said. Three people were killed in clashes Tuesday.
As part of the transport blockade, the south-eastern city of Chittagong, the country's main port, remained at a standstill, with deliveries suspended.
More than 4,000 troops were deployed in the city to prevent deadly clashes.
Business leaders had demanded a quick resolution to the deadlock, saying the blockade was costing the impoverished country's textile exporters more than 70 million dollars a day.
The opposition has staged dozens of protests and national strikes this year aimed at ousting officials it accuses of political bias.
Its objections to the BNP's choice for head of the caretaker government, K.M. Hasan, led to the former supreme court judge turning down the job. Hasan was a senior BNP official during the late 1970s.
Instead, the president appointed himself head of the non-partisan body amid spiralling violence.