Chief election commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad has sought the support of President Abdul Hamid for conducting free, fair and peaceful elections, with all political parties participating in them. He also sought the President’s support for deploying the Army as early as possible after the election schedule is announced, which is supposed to be declared within a couple of days, authoritative sources told The Independent. Officials of the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday met the President to apprise him about the preparations for the next polls. The CEC informed the President that the commission has brought about some amendments to the electoral code of conduct for ensuring a level playing field for all stakeholders, according to a senior official.
Ahmad informed the President that the EC has completed all technical preparations for holding the upcoming 10th national polls, while paying the call on him at Bangabhaban on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting lasted around an hour, from 4 to 5pm.
The CEC was accompanied by election commissioners Mohammad Abdul Mobarak, Mohammad Abu Hafiz, Md Shah Nawaz and secretary of the EC secretariat, Dr Mohammad Sadik.
The EC wants to hold the parliamentary polls on January 5, 9 or 16, but failed to confirm this as the President has another meeting with the Leader of the Opposition, Begum Khaleda Zia. It wants to start the negotiations with the major Opposition party, an official said, preferring anonymity.
According to the current Constitutional obligations, the present Parliament will be dissolved within January 24, 2014, and general elections will be held under the present government. Under Article 123(3), there is a directive to hold the elections within the next 90 days of the dissolution of the Jatiya Sangsad.
The EC also informed the President that the polls would be held on a single day as the suggestion of holding the elections in different phases could create serious anarchy “as it is our system to announce the results from the booths the same day”.
Following the meeting, the CEC said the entire nation is waiting to observe a peaceful end to the current political impasse over the election-time government. “We are hopeful that we will be able to see the end of the political impasse,” he said, without elaborating.
Ahmad informed the President that the voters’ list has been prepared properly in a transparent way. “There is no scope for finding errors in the voters’ list,” he asserted.
Apart from photographs, the CEC said the EC has preserved 31 kinds of information about each voter in biometric form in order to prevent all kinds of fraudulence.
President Abdul Hamid expressed satisfaction over the steps taken by the EC.
The CEC said the EC has started preparations for the next general elections with steps such as gathering field-level information, including the status of upazila and district-level manpower from the local administration, as per the Representation of People Order (RPO), 1972. It has made plans to train field-level election officials, who will be working during the next parliamentary polls, while it has also started procuring all necessary equipment for the polls, both locally and internationally, he said.
“The EC is only responsible for organising the polls, with no authority to decide which government system would oversee the elections,” the CEC iterated. Under such circumstances, the election to the 10th Jatiya Sangsad will be held next January. The EC is likely to announce the poll date either at the end of November or at the beginning of December.
Allegations have been levelled by the main Opposition parties that the EC is making preparations for unilaterally holding the next elections under the present government (Grand Alliance government).
However, the 18-Party Alliance has already declared that it will not go in for elections except under a non-party caretaker government system. It has threatened to organise a movement for dropping Section 91(E) from the RPO.
The main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has also levelled many more allegations against the Rakib Commission regarding the demarcation of the constituencies as well as over the issue of registration of the Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) as a political party.
-With The Independent input
