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Download PDF President and Chief Adviser Iajuddin Ahmed made the Election Commission (EC) announce the schedule for the next parliamentary elections hastily on Monday against an EC move for declaring it upon resolving the political deadlock over the issue.
The EC had planned to wait a few more days before announcing the polls schedule to observe if the political situation improves. It also requested Iajuddin to initiate steps to break the political standoff over election schedule, sources said.
The EC was planning to announce the polls schedule early December, hoping that the political tension should defuse by then. Sources said a message was also sent to different political parties informing them of this plan.
The EC also requested the president to keep the commission beyond any controversy over the appointments of new election commissioners so that the EC Secretariat can continue its preparatory work for the election smoothly.
“The president was informed of the overall situation so that participation of all political parties in the election can be ensured,” EC Secretary Abdur Rashid Sarkar said at a press briefing yesterday. Sarkar met the president late Sunday night.
Asked if the EC requested the president to initiate steps to reach a consensus among the political parties before announcing the election schedule, he only said, “On our part, we left no stone unturned.”
The EC secretary, however, said there is still a scope for rescheduling if the political parties can reach a consensus on it. “But the Election Commission cannot take the initiative for a consensus. It should come from the caretaker government,” Sarkar said, requesting the government to defuse the political tension.
In line with the EC plan, the EC Secretariat started sending election materials to field level offices of returning officers and assistant returning officers on Saturday. But because of early declaration of the polls schedule, the election materials, which generally reach the field level before announcement of the schedule, did not reach all their destinations as of yesterday, sources said.
A few returning officers also could not issue public notices on Monday inviting people to file nomination papers as they did not receive the EC Secretariat circular for announcement of the election schedule.
In the last few days, delegations of the Awami League-led 14-party alliance met the president and strongly opposed the EC move to announce polls schedule before correcting the voter list, while delegations of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami demanded immediate announcement of the schedule.
Officials at the EC Secretariat yesterday expressed frustration about the uncertainty over holding the election as per the declared schedule and further controversy over a newly appointed election commissioner’s background.
They said they thought the controversy over the EC had come to an end the day Chief Election Commissioner MA Aziz went on a three-month leave.
The EC did not hold any meeting yesterday to review the prevailing situation following the announcement of the polls schedule. None of its members talked to the media either.
Meanwhile, the field level election officials expressed fear of attack. The EC Secretariat in a letter asked the home ministry yesterday afternoon to ensure security of the district and upazila election officers until the election is over, sources said.
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