Bangladesh News

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday said the Election Commission (EC) plans to hold the long over due polls to upazila parishads before the parliamentary election.

The CEC disclosed the commission’s plan at a time when most political parties have been vehemently opposing holding of upazila elections before the stalled ninth parliamentary poll.

“We plan to hold upazila elections before the parliamentary poll,” CEC Huda told a delegation of Gono Forum at a meeting held in the EC Secretariat conference room.

The poll chief however did not specify any timeframe for holding the upazila elections, although the much talked about electoral roadmap, announced by his commission on July 15 last year, indicated that upazila elections will be held between November and December of this year.

The military backed caretaker government, which had earlier vowed all out support for the roadmap, now wants the EC to start holding the upazila elections much earlier, sources in the government said.

LGRD Adviser Anwarul Iqbal at a recent meeting with the EC proposed the latter to begin holding the polls to 482 upazila parishads, wherever voter lists are ready.

Voter lists for at least 100 upazilas are expected to be ready within May, and if the EC, now re-empowered with the authority to announce upazila election schedules, wants to start holding the elections in phases either in August or in September, it has all legal powers to do so.

Voter lists for other upazilas will also be ready by that time as the entire job of preparing the national voter list is scheduled to be completed by the end of October, officials in the EC Secretariat said.

During electoral reform dialogues between the EC and political parties and during the latter’s ‘unofficial’ talks with government advisers, most of the participating political parties opposed the plan of holding upazila elections before the parliamentary poll.

Referring to previous instances they alleged, former military rulers held local government polls first to consolidate their power at grassroots level to ensure easy victories in parliamentary polls. Besides, preparations for the parliamentary poll will be hampered if the upazila elections are held first, the political parties argued.

With reported blessings from the military backed caretaker administration, union parishad chairmen have been campaigning for holding upazila elections before the parliamentary poll. A forum of the union parishad chairmen held at least eight meetings countrywide to drum up public support for early upazila polls, which had last been held in 1990.

This month they also met the CEC and the caretaker government’s five dialoguing advisers, demanding upazila elections before the parliamentary polls.

“The advisers assured us of upazila elections before the parliamentary poll,” a union parishad chairman told The Daily Star yesterday on condition of anonymity.

CEC Huda earlier on several occasions said the EC had decided to hold upazila elections and it was examining whether the polls would be held before or simultaneously with the parliamentary poll.

The poll chief yesterday however buried all speculations by disclosing the EC’s plan to hold the upazila polls before the parliamentary election.

The CEC told the Gono Forum delegation that the field level work of voter registration will be completed by the end of June or by the first week of July.

CEC Huda however said the polls to four city corporations and seven municipalities will not be held in May according to the earlier announced timeframe, due to a delay in promulgating fresh laws regarding those polls.

On the state of emergency, the CEC said the EC already asked the government to create an environment conducive to holding polls, either by lifting or by relaxing the state of emergency.

About remapping parliamentary constituencies, the CEC said the commission will publish a draft of redrawn parliamentary boundaries on Sunday.

“Claims and objections over the redrawn parliamentary constituencies will be settled before May 17,” Huda said last afternoon.

Earlier in the day, Huda’s house in Faridpur district town came under attack reportedly from activists of pro-Khaleda faction of BNP protesting the EC’s decision to invite their rival faction to an electoral reform dialogue, leaving the loyalists of detained BNP chairperson unsure about their electoral future.

Asked for his comment about the incident, the CEC told reporters that he knew nothing about it.

Gono Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain at the meeting with the EC lauded the commission’s electoral reform proposals. “It depends on the Election Commission whether democracy will be restored in the country. An election acceptable to all is our main demand,” Dr Kamal said.

In response to a Gono Forum proposal, Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain said the drive for recovering small arms and arresting local goons may continue until the parliamentary election is about to be held.