CEC takes a swipe at politicians

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Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday said although war criminals should have been tried immediately after the country’s independence, all the successive governments refrained from putting the anti-liberation forces on trial.

Responding to a proposal for banning Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh from carrying out its political activities including its right to contest in parliamentary elections, the CEC said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman provided amnesty to war criminals, but he also said people who had specific charges against them were not eligible for the amnesty.

“It was you [politicians], who made anti-liberation leader Shah Azizur Rahman the prime minister after 1975. Anti-liberation people were made ministers of the immediate past government. Now how we are to go ahead disqualifying them from contesting in the polls?” the CEC asked.

“Give us a mechanism, give us a proposal for approaching the matter,” Huda said while holding a dialogue with Krishak Sramik Janata League (KSJL) on electoral reforms in the EC Secretariat conference room.

The KSJL chief, also a veteran freedom fighter, Quader Siddiqui, placed a set of electoral reform proposals including a proposal for inserting new conditions for registration of political parties so that the anti-liberation forces like Jamaat-e-Islami may not get registered for contesting in parliamentary elections until they seek mercy for their crimes in 1971.

“Bangabandhu did not give amnesty to those who had been charged for murder and rape during the liberation war. Jamaat-e-Islami supported the Pakistani army and committed crimes against humanity, which are evident in newspaper reports,” the KSJL chief said.

He also proposed to cancel the election symbol of Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a scale, as it is a symbol of justice worldwide. “There is no relation between justice and Jamaat,” Quader quipped.

Another leader of KSJL told the meeting that freedom fighters are suffering tremendously while the anti-liberation collaborators are having good times in independent Bangladesh, they even enjoyed state power.

At that point of the dialogue, the CEC responded to KSJL’s proposals and said the Communist Part of Bangladesh also raised the same demand in February. “But how are we to accept and implement the proposal for declaring the war criminals and anti-liberation forces disqualified from contesting in the polls?” he questioned.

The KSJL chief expressed his appreciation to the CEC’s amicable approach to their proposal and said they just raised the sentiment of the people before the EC.

Despite the poll chief’s apparent sympathy towards KSJL’s unequivocal denouncement of the anti-liberation forces, the EC is scheduled to sit for a dialogue with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh on October 25, as the party has been a parliamentary one since 1986.

Jamaat had been constitutionally banned in Bangladesh up to 1976 since the independence of the country, until late president Ziaur Rahman, who was the chief martial law administrator at the time, reinstated it in mainstream politics despite their fundamentalist ideology.

Jamaat first came to share state power with BNP in 2001 as part of the immediate past ruling alliance.

“We are not talking about any individual, rather about a political party which opposed the liberation war of Bangladesh. Jamaat-e-Islami is a political party which had first worked as an agent of the British colonialists and later as a collaborator to the invading Pakistani army during Bangladesh’s war of independence,” Quader said.

He said the EC in its proposal for having parliamentarian political parties registered with the commission mentions that a party has to express allegiance to Bangladesh’s constitution and to the country’s sovereignty, but Jamaat-e-Islami does not have allegiance to the country’s constitution as the party’s constitution pledges to establish Allah’s laws.

“So, Jamaat-e-Islami in no way can be allowed to be registered with the Election Commission,” Quader said.

Later, Secretary-in-charge to the EC Humayun Kabir briefed journalists about the electoral reform talk between KSJL and the commission. The two other election commissioners — Muhammed Sohul Hussain and Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain, and senior officials of the EC Secretariat attended the discussion.

EC AGAINST SUPERIMPOSED REFORMS
In the dialogue, the CEC said they have been repeatedly saying that the political parties, which represent the interest of the people, are their number one choice. He also described the EC’s proposed measures for bringing reforms to the electoral laws.

“We have arranged the dialogue with the political parties as we don’t want to take any decision unilaterally. We want to bring reforms through discussions, as superimposed reforms will not bring any positive result,” CEC Huda said.

The poll chief said the EC will finalise the proposals for electoral reforms through its talks with the parties and then it will send the finalised proposal to the government.

The EC began the talks on September 12, which is to continue till November 22, following government’s relaxation of the ban on indoor politics on September 9.

INDOOR POLITICS
As the KSJL chief thanked the EC for making the government relax the restrictions on indoor politics, CEC Huda said indoor politics should be allowed all over the country, not only in Dhaka.

“We will ask the government to lift the ban on indoor politics at district levels. We will put pressure on the government, if necessary, as things can’t run like this. The government will have to lift the restrictions on indoor politics because we will start holding elections to local government bodies in January,” the CEC said.

In response to the EC’s repeated call for lifting the ban on indoor politics, the government relaxed the restrictions on indoor politics only in Dhaka to facilitate the commission’s effort to electoral reforms.

In the EC’s electoral roadmap announced on July 15, it said the commission will also ask the government to relax the state of emergency in particular areas where it will hold elections to local government bodies from January. According to its plan, the commission will hold polls to Rajshahi City Corporation in next January.

KSJL’S PROPOSALS
A delegation of KSJL led by its chief, Quader Siddiqui, held a two-hour long meeting with the EC and submitted a set of proposals for electoral reforms.

Emerging from the meeting, Quader told the reporters that they oppose the EC’s proposals for imposing a ban on political parties’ right to having chapters abroad, and the proposed ban on the parties’ right to form front organisation of professionals. He however said they are in favour of the EC’s proposal for curbing political parties’ right to form student wings, but emphasised that students must be allowed to be involved in politics without being subsidiaries to political parties.

In defence of having chapters of political parties abroad, the KSJL chief said over one crore Bangladeshis are living abroad who have the right to be members of political parties as they remit a huge amount of foreign currencies to the country every year.

About the EC’s proposal for having 33 percent women in all committees of a party as a criterion for getting EC registration, Quader said they would be happy if the required percentage was increased to 50. “But it is not realistic in the present social context,” he claimed.

KSJL also proposed introduction of a new system of appointing district judges as returning officers in the polls, instead of the current practice of appointing deputy commissioners for the job.

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