Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has declared that they would participate in the upcoming municipal elections slated to be held in the country's 234 municipalities on December 30.
In line with the announcement, BNP requested the Election Commission (EC) to delay the elections for 15 days and it placed some of its demands including a halt in desperate arrest of their activists across the country.
BNP International Affairs Secretary Dr Asaduzzaman Ripan made the declaration through a press conference in its Nayapaltan office in the capital on Friday.
“The government has plundered the voting right of the countrymen. When people get the chance for short time, the government deprives them from the dignity as well. Nonetheless, BNP is going to participate in the municipality polls to save the democratic process from debacle, as well as to meet the voting wish of the countrymen,” the BNP spokesman said.
Earlier, the EC announced the election schedule for 234 out of the country’s 323 municipalities.
As per schedule, the deadline for submission of nomination is December 3. Scrutiny will be held on December 5 and 6 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is December 13.
This year, these local elections will be partly partisan for the first time in history and partly the other way round.
Some 71,62,396 voters – 35,86,356 men and 35,76,040 women – will be able to exercise their franchise through 19,187 booths of possible 3,582 polling stations during the elections.
The elections will see contests for 3,924 seats – 234 mayors, 738 councillors, from reserve seat set apart from women and 2,952 general councillors.