Bangladesh's opposition suspended on Wednesday a national transport blockade that paralysed the country for four days, but warned of a resumption on Monday if a controversial election chief was not sacked.
"We have suspended our protests and blockades until Sunday," said Sheikh Hasina Wajed, leader of the main opposition Awami League.
The Awami League and its allies launched the transport blockade and other protests on Sunday in a bid to force the interim government, tasked with staging fair elections in January, to dismiss election chief M.A. Aziz.
The opposition accuses Aziz of rigging the elections in favour of the outgoing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNO)-led government by drawing up a voter list with more than 10 millions fake voters.
"If he (President Iajuddin Ahmed) fails to implement our demands we will resume our movement from Monday. We want the president to prove his neutrality (by sacking the commissioner) so the right atmosphere for free and fair elections is created," Sheikh Hasina told reporters.
She said the suspension was to ease suffering of "low and middle income people" effected by the blockade.
Thousands of protesters from rival political parties earlier rallied on the streets of the capital Dhaka and opposition supporters blocked highways to cut links between major cities, police said.
Four Awami League activists were hurt, two seriously, when they were beaten up by BNP supporters in the northern town of Sylhet, said police.
In the capital, opposition protesters burned an effigy of Aziz and marched through the streets chanting "sack Aziz and save the country", witnesses said.
Aziz, who was a senior BNP official in the late 1970s, has refused to quit and the BNP has said it will mount its own protests if he is replaced.
The caretaker administration, headed by the president, completed talks with Bangladesh's political parties Wednesday over the stand-off. "We have very little time in our hands but we can assure the people that we will reach a solution within a very short time," Akbar Ali Khan, a member of the caretaker government's cabinet, told reporters late Tuesday.
The interim cabinet was due to discuss the situation and reach a decision, Khan said, adding "big differences" between the parties remained.
The blockade meant that deliveries to and from the impoverished country's main port at Chittagong in south-eastern Bangladesh were suspended for a fourth day despite pleas from business leaders.