About 66.89% of lawmakers elected in the 12th parliamentary election are businessmen while as many as 89.97% of the newly elected MPs are millionaires.
Non-government organization Shushasoner Jonno Nagorik (SHUJAN) revealed this information by analyzing the affidavits of the MPs.
Both the number of businesspeople and lawmakers with assets worth over Tk1 crore has increased in the 12th parliament compared to the 11th general elections.
SHUJAN came up with the information at a virtual press conference on Tuesday after analysing the affidavits of the winning lawmakers in the election held on January 7.
Dilip Kumar Sarkar, the central coordinator of SHUJAN, presented the findings, where it was informed that 200 of the elected 299 lawmakers are businesspeople, which is 66.89% of the total number, while 185 people, which is 61.66% of the total number of lawmakers, were businesspeople in the 11th national parliament.
Among the elected lawmakers, 269 have assets of more than Tk1 crore, which is 89.97% of the total number of lawmakers.
247 lawmakers had assets worth over Tk1 crore in the previous parliament which was 82.33% of the total number of lawmakers.
The number of highly educated parliamentarians has also increased slightly compared to the 11th Parliament, as 82.60% of newly elected parliamentarians have completed graduation or post-graduation, compared to 81% in the 11th national parliament.
Badiul Alam Majumdar, the secretary of Shujan, said that the 12th general election was a one-sided election as many features of a fair election were absent.
He said: “There were some features of fair elections, including having fair options for voters, having a level playing field for all, not knowing what the result will be until the result is announced, and having a chance for a power reshuffle.”
“As the elections of 2014 and 2018 were controversial, the people of the country hoped for free and fair polls, but their expectations were not fulfilled in the election,” said Majumdar.
He said: “The candidate affidavits often contain false and misleading information and concealed information about wealth, but the Election Commission does not verify the information properly and did not take action in this regard.”