Staff Reporter:
The Election Commission of Bangladesh has stepped up preparations to hold long-pending local government elections, while simultaneously moving forward with reforms to electoral laws and updating the voter list.
“We are making all the necessary preparations for conducting the local government elections. Everything required to organise an election is being done, although no election date has yet been finalised,” Election Commissioner Md Anwarul Islam Sarker told Daily Sun on Thursday. He said the commission is taking all necessary steps to complete all local government elections within a year.
Asked which election would be held first, the commissioner said no decision had yet been taken in this regard.
Meanwhile, the EC has initiated steps to reform local government electoral rules to make them more consistent and aligned with existing laws.
The Law and Rules Reform Committee, headed by Election Commissioner Abdur Rahmanel Masud, held a meeting in this regard at the Election Building on Wednesday. Speaking of the meeting, Masud said that a decision has been taken to conduct a comparative review of existing regulations related to local government elections. He said the commission would formulate a harmonised and uniform set of rules for all local government institutions.
The commission further said that the amendments to the rules may include increasing security deposit amounts for candidates, banning campaign posters, and removing the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) system from future local government elections.
Elections are scheduled to be held in nearly 4,100 local government institutions, according to officials at the EC Secretariat. The EC intensified preparations for the local government polls after Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at the Deputy Commissioners’ Conference on May 5 that efforts would be made to complete all local-level elections within a year.
