EC starts 2nd round talks next week

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The Election Commission (EC) will start the second round of electoral reform talks with political parties from next week regardless of the result of the High Court hearing tomorrow on the dialogue with BNP, Election Commissioner Muhammed Sohul Hussain said yesterday.

The EC, however, backed off from its earlier decision of holding talks with all the parties together since most of them refused to sit with Jamaat-e-Islami, an anti-liberation force. The commission will now sit with the parties separately to avoid further complexities, sources said.

“We will start the second round of talks from February 18 or 19,” the election commissioner told the reporters emerging from a meeting of the EC.

If the issue of inviting a certain faction of BNP is not resolved through tomorrow’s HC hearing, the EC would go for holding talks with other political parties excluding BNP for the time being, he said. “In that case, we will hold talks with BNP later,” the election commissioner added.

However, if the HC comes to a decision regarding the issue, the EC will hold dialogue with BNP within a couple of days to complete the first round of electoral reform talks, Sohul said.

The HC tomorrow resumes hearing on a writ petition filed by the pro-Khaleda faction of BNP on November 18, 2007 that stayed the effectiveness of the EC’s invitation letter to M Saifur Rahman-led faction of the party to the dialogue scheduled for November 22, 2007.

As a result, the EC could not hold the talks with BNP in over two months.

The EC began electoral reform talks with political parties on September 12, 2007 and completed first round of talks, excepting BNP due to the disputes between the two factions of the party.

According to the EC announced electoral roadmap in July 2007, the electoral reform talks with the political parties were supposed to be completed between September and November of last year.

During the first round of talks, the EC disclosed its plan to sit with the parties for a second time to get the parties’ final opinions on the proposals for electoral reforms. Once the proposals are finalised, the EC will send those to the government to make those laws.

The EC wants to complete the second round of talks within this month since the government would begin its dialogue with political parties after the EC wraps up the talks.

“We may sit with two or three parties a day to complete the talks within a few days,” Election Commissioner Sohul said adding that the EC decided to sit with the parties separately as there are differences in opinion among the parties.

Most of the political parties at the first round of talks had urged the EC not to register any anti-liberation forces, including Jamaat, as political party and bar war criminals from contesting polls.

At the meeting yesterday, the EC also discussed a draft ordinance to impose ban on scrawling graffiti and writings on walls of houses and establishments in the urban areas.

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