Bangladesh News

The Representation of the People Ordinance promulgated on August 19 has already become the centrepoint of a debate about how the parties should behave themselves in elections and how they should reform themselves for fair polls. As the political parties are widely divided on changes to the RPO, it is worthwhile to take a look at the basic changes the new rules. Following are the highlights of the amendments for the readers to understand how relevant the rules are and what their aim is:

Registration of political parties with the Election Commission is made compulsory and a ban is slapped on having front organisations and overseas units of political parties.
Loan defaulters and war criminals, declared by a local or international court, are made ineligible to run in elections.
An option to cast no-vote is given to voters and if 50 percent of votes are no-votes then the constituency will have re-election.
Public or defence officials who have resigned or retired have to wait three years before they can run in elections.
No candidate will be able to contest in more than three constituencies.
Candidates must be voters and must submit eight pieces of information in the nomination papers.
The EC is empowered to cancel candidature for violation of electoral laws and code of conduct.
Parties with no parliamentary seats won since independence and with less than five percent votes secured in constituencies concerned will be disqualified for registration.
Parties are required to give nominations on the basis of recommendations made by local level party committees in every constituency.
Political parties must have their own constitution.
Political parties must incorporate provisions in their constitutions to get elected members in all their committees.
Political parties must incorporate provisions in their constitutions to get 33 percent women leaders in all committees by 2012.

All major political parties will have to amend their constitutions to fulfil the criteria laid down for registration.