Bangladesh News

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday criticised Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) for their “about-face” on electoral reforms.

Referring to Saturday’s talks with the parties, he said their attitude frustrates him.

“They now reject all reforms including the ones they accepted before. We don’t understand their u-turn,” he continued.

“I was really surprised and said to myself, ‘Oh God, what are we hearing from huzurs [Islamic scholars] in these days of Ramadan’.”

Rather, he added, it was BNP whose approach was more positive. “Discussions with the BNP delegation gave me a ray of hope amid frustrations.”

On September 20, the Election Commission sat with BNP, Jamaat, and IOJ separately and rounded off its third round electoral talks with the political parties.

Meanwhile, in a press release yesterday Jamaat strongly protested the CEC’s comment.

“His comment upset us. It’s not only unbecoming to his post, but also indecent,” Jamaat acting secretary general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman said in the release.

“We hope he will realise that he shouldn’t have made the comment,” he added.

“In the first two rounds of talks, we said since mandatory registration is new to the political parties, the Election Commission should employ an easy procedure to ensure all parties get registered. But they took no heed.” the release read.

“Then in the third-round dialogue we said it’s not possible for any political party to meet the stringent registration criteria at such short notice. So registration should not be compulsory for the parties to contest the upcoming election.”