Ceiling of election expenditure raised to Tk25 lakh, party can receive donation of Tk 25,00,000 from individual and Tk. 50,00,000 from organisation
The cabinet on Monday approved the draft of Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2013 turning down many of the proposals, including operation of mobile court against electoral offences. The weekly cabinet meeting chaired by prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the secretariat, however, kept some of EC’s proposals, including raising of ceiling of election expenditure intact.
‘The draft raises the ceiling of election expenditures for each candidate from Tk15 lakh to Tk25 lakh… An individual will be allowed to donate Tk25 lakh instead of Tk10 lakh to a political party while an organisation is allowed to donate up to Tk50 lakh instead of Tk25 lakh,’ cabinet secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told a press briefing.
He said the cabinet had given the final approval to the draft subject to the law ministry’s vetting. The draft bill is likely to be placed in parliament in the current session for passage.
The proposed amendments have kept provisions, among others, for barring those convicted of crimes under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 from contesting the polls.
The Election Commission on July 25 sent a set of final proposals to the law ministry for amendments to the Representation of the People Order 1972, the primary electoral law, and the cabinet has kept some of EC’s proposals intact.
The commission had proposed to reduce the punishment for electoral offences from maximum seven years of rigorous imprisonment to five years ostensibly to employ mobile court by executive magistrates during the polling under the Mobile Court Act 2009 but the cabinet did not approve the proposal, according to officials.
The commission had also proposed in vain an amendment to the definition of ‘office of profit’ in the RPO.
According to the existing provision, ‘office of profit’ means holding an office, post or position in the full-time service of the republic or any statutory public authority or company in which the government has more than 50 per cent share, but the EC had proposed to drop the word ‘full-time’ from the existing provision.
The cabinet also did not approve the EC’s proposal to change the criteria for being eligible to contest the polls.
RPO Article 12(1) stipulates that a person shall be disqualified for election as or for being, a member, if he (d) is a person who is convicted of an offence punishable under Article 73, 74, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 and 86 and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than two years, unless a period of five years has elapsed since the date of his release.
But the EC had proposed that a person should be disqualified for election as or for being, a member, ‘if he (d) is
a person who is convicted of an offence punishable under Article 73, 74, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86A and 86B and unless a period of two years has elapsed since the date of his conviction’, but the cabinet did not approve the amendment.
The commission had also proposed that a guarantor for a loanee should be ineligible to contest the polls ‘if the loan against which he has been the guarantor is not paid before seven days from the day of submission of nomination paper’, but the cabinet turned down the proposal.
The expenditure of the party chief for travelling to various constituencies other than his or her own constituency for the purpose of election campaign would be excluded, the cabinet secretary said.
The deposit of a candidate for a member of parliament has been increased to Tk20,000 from Tk10,000, he added.
The draft says, ‘The chairman or secretary or a person holding the same rank of a registered political party shall inform, by notice in writing signed by him and delivered, either by himself or by any other person authorised by him in this behalf on or before the withdrawal day, to the returning officer, about the nomination of a candidate, other candidate, if any, of that party shall cease to be a candidate.’
The draft also says a candidate must choose his polling agent from among the voters of the constituency concerned.
Backtracking on its position to keep control over appointment, promotion and transfer of government officials during the election time, the EC had only proposed, ‘When it appears necessary to transfer any employee of any department of the government or of any other organisation in the interest of fair election, the commission may request the authorities concerned [over] the matter in writing and such transfer shall have to be made effective as soon as possible on receipt of such request from the commission.’
When the EC had sent its RPO amendment proposals to the law ministry in May 2013, it had had proposed a provision that ‘from the date of dissolution of parliament and until the formation of a new one, the government shall not take any decision relating to appointment, transfer and posting of officials of all ministries and of offices subordinate thereto without consultation with the commission’. But the EC in its final proposal deleted the provision.
The commission finally dropped a decision to curtail its authority, by scrapping the Article 91E of the RPO, to cancel candidature of a candidate for breaching electoral code of conduct.
-With New Age input
