Bangladesh News

The Election Commission (EC) will announce fresh dates for the parliamentary and upazila elections today.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday said, “It’s almost certain that the national election won’t be held on December 18.”

Asked what would be the election date in that case, he replied it might be any day between December 27 and 29.

He was talking to reporters after meeting the Awami League-led grand alliance at the EC Secretariat in the evening.

The new polls schedules come when the deadline for filing candidacy applications in both the national and upazila elections expires today.

Sources at the EC Secretariat last night said the commission would prefer a working day before the polling day, and so the most likely date is December 29.

They also added that the EC would not yield to the growing pressure from the political parties to defer the December 28 upazila polls for at least a month. It would at best put back the polls by 10 to 12 days.

Besides, the commission might ask the government to lift the state of emergency to ensure the elections are held in a free atmosphere.

Earlier in the day, referring to the talks with AL and allies, CEC Huda said, “We’ve mainly discussed new dates for the polls and lifting of the state of emergency.”

He said, “They [Awami League-led coalition] will take a decision tonight [last night] and inform us about it.”

The polls chief also said the EC will make some recommendations for the caretaker government with regard to repeated calls from BNP- and AL-led electoral combines for withdrawal of the state of emergency.

Emerging from the meeting at around 7:15pm, AL acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, who led the seven-member alliance team, said, “We’ll give our reaction once the commission takes the decision.”

He said it is the caretaker government, EC and the BNP-Jamaat alliance who are mainly concerned with rescheduling of the polls.

“We are no party to this deliberation. We are preparing for the parliamentary polls on December 18 as announced by the Election Commission.”

He said the whole nation hailed the plans for holding the polls on December 18.

“We are almost all set for the day. We have fixed our electoral strategy and plans. Our manifesto has already gone to press,” Ashraf said.

Later, the delegation briefed the grand alliance leaders about details of the discussion.

Meanwhile, meeting sources said the AL-led alliance did not seem to have much objection to the EC shifting the polls date.

According to them, the delegation said the commission can retain the authority to cancel candidatures for gross electoral irregularities provided the power is applied with utmost caution.

Speaking in return for anonymity, an election commissioner told The Daily Star that the commission would talk to Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed before announcing its decision.

The EC initiated the latest negotiations with the political parties after BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia Thursday announced that if the parliamentary polls are deferred by 10 days, the four-party alliance would take part in those.

It sat with BNP and allies Friday.