The much-hyped local government amendment bill was finally passed in parliament yesterday, paving way for arranging partisan polls to municipality mayoral posts.
LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain piloted the Local Government (Municipality) (Amendment) Bill 2015, which was passed by voice vote.
Now that the bill is passed, independent or those nominated by Election-Commission-registered political parties will be able to contest for mayors to the 324 municipalities.
However, elections for councilor posts (both general and reserved for women) of the municipalities will be non-partisan, meaning nobody will be able to run with symbols of political parties. Only the mayoral candidates will be able to use the symbol of the nominating parties.
Until now, only the parliamentary elections were partisan; there was no scope for holding polls to local government bodies – such as municipalities – on partisan basis.
Last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on LGRD and Cooperatives Ministry placed its reports regarding the bill along with three other local government body bills in the Jatiya Sangshad.
The Election Commission has a plan to arrange elections in some 240 municipalities by December 30.