Bangladesh News

The reconstituted Election Commission (EC) completes one year of operation today but is yet to begin a few major tasks, including publication of the draft voter list and holding polls to different local government bodies within January as per its electoral roadmap.

The EC also could not complete some tasks that were supposed to be finished by this time. For instance, the dialogues with the political parties on electoral law reforms and institutional reforms were not held during September-November last year according to the EC roadmap.

The commission is also yet to formulate rules it was empowered to do last August for legalising the ongoing procedure for preparing the voter list with photographs and publication of its draft.

Sources in the EC Secretariat, however, said the rules will be formulated this week and the publication of the draft voter list will begin sometime this month.

Announcing the roadmap on July 16 last year, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda said there is no scope to deviate from the timeframe as deviation from one component would create pressures on others.

The EC has also failed to deliver on its promises on some issues because of shifting its stances. At the end of last year it said on several occasions that it would ask the government in January to lift the state of emergency at divisional headquarters for holding the due polls to five city corporations.

But the commission is yet to make any such move. It now wants to hold the polls in April-May.

The commission has not also decided yet when it will ask the government to lift the state of emergency. It now says it will ask the government either to lift or relax the state of emergency one and a half months before holding the city corporations polls.

The present EC, which was reconstituted on last February 4 under the leadership of Shamsul Huda, initiated massive tasks for electoral reforms.

On April 5 last year, the EC announced that no polls would be held in the next 18 months since it is the minimum required timeframe for preparing the voter list with photographs and completion of other preparations.

On July 16, it said it would begin holding due polls to the local government bodies from January this year, but elections to a large number of local government bodies have remained due.

It seemed that the EC did not get required assistance on some issues from the caretaker government in the last one year although the government is constitutionally bound to extend all-out support to the EC for its functioning.

CEC Huda met the then law adviser on April 4 and asked the government to lift the restrictions on indoor politics so that the EC can hold talks on the proposed electoral reforms with the political parties.

At a press conference on April 5, Huda disclosed a set of proposals for electoral reforms with the hope that the government would soon create an atmosphere for the talks. The government, however, did not respond to the call.

As a result, the EC could not complete the tasks for electoral law reforms within August last year as per its promises.

The government finally relaxed the restrictions on indoor politics only in the capital from September 10. But, the commission could not complete the talks with parties within November because of complexities that arose over inviting the BNP to the talks.

The issue ultimately drove the reconstituted EC into controversy for the first time and its neutrality was questioned.

As of yesterday, it was not clear when the EC will be able to hold talks with the BNP and take next steps on the electoral reforms.

The CEC himself is now saying it would be done by March.

Before announcing the roadmap, the EC had held talks only with civil society personalities and the media.

Meanwhile, the political parties cannot also begin their internal reforms as they are waiting for the completion of the electoral law reforms, which would guide the parties in amending their constitutions to register with the EC by June.

However, the EC successfully began the field level task for preparing the voter list with photographs from August last year. A total 3.07 crore voters have been registered in the electoral rolls as of January 29.

According to the EC roadmap, the remaining task of registering around six crore voters will have to be completed by June this year.

The EC also did not begin the tasks for printing, posting and correcting the draft voter list which were supposed to have begun in last October, two months after the field level tasks had begun.

According to the roadmap, the printing and distribution of the final voter list will have to be done in between August and October this year so that the elections could be held by the end of this year.

Another significant component of the electoral roadmap is demarcation of the electoral constituencies to bring balance among parliamentary seats on the basis of number of voters. The EC announced its plan last month for delimiting the parliamentary seats and the tasks are supposed to be done by this June.

The most significant components of the roadmap are holding polls to different local government bodies and announcing the schedule for the parliamentary elections.

The EC had announced that it would start holding the local government elections from January in areas where the voter listing has been done.

It had announced the polls to Rajshahi City Corporation to be held in January. The tasks for preparing the voter list started here last August. But the EC later shifted its stance, saying it wanted to hold the due polls to five city corporations in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet in April-May.

Polls to around 50 municipalities have also been due by this time.

Moreover, polls to over 4,000 union parishads have now become due as their tenures started expiring from this January. All the tenures will expire by March and as per the laws, elections to these local government bodies have to be held within 180 days before their tenures expire.

But, the EC is now saying it will not think about the “massive” task of holding the due polls to union parishads as it may hamper its main responsibility of holding the parliamentary polls.

As per the roadmap, the long due polls to upazila parishads are supposed to be held in between November and December this year.

Legal and institutional reforms were supposed to have been completed last year while major issues like separation of the EC Secretariat and formulating rules for recruiting its staffs are yet to be completed.

In a significant move, the caretaker government has recently approved a proposal to return to the EC the power of announcing the schedule of upazila parishad polls.

The government has also approved proposals to free the EC Secretariat from the control of the Prime Minister’s Office, now the office of the chief adviser, in a bid to strengthen the EC.