With just a touch over a month to go before the first ever partisan municipality elections, the Election Commission has rejected an extension plea from some of the leading political parties.
In the upcoming polls slated for December 30, political parties will for the first time be able to nominate their candidates for a local government election.
This year, the contest for municipality mayors will be partisan and this has been accompanied by a lot of debate from different quarters since the time the idea was floated a few months ago.
However, the polls to the remaining general and reserved women councillors’ posts will be non-partisan as usual.
Earlier this month, the Jatiya Sangshad amended the municipality polls bill to accommodate these changes.
Main political opposition BNP and ruling alliance partners Workers Party of Bangladesh and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD) are the major parties to have sought time extension for the EC.
All these parties said they needed the additional time to finish preparations. The last day for submitting nomination papers is December 3. This means that these parties will have to finalise their mayoral candidates for the 236 municipalities by that date, which is less than a week away.
In a recent press release, the Workers Party said: “Enough time has not been given for finalising candidates, nomination submission and candidate scrutiny. It would be tough to complete the election process within such a short time.”
The left-leaning political party also said that even the EC was not ready either which is apparent from its behavior. So, election commission should reschedule the election.
JaSaD said that it does not have any problems with the voting date but wants rescheduling of nomination paper submission and withdrawal.
The EC, however, has rejected the plea outright, saying there is no scope for that.
“You are free to want anything. But you must see whether the demand can be met. There is no scope to defer the voting,” said Election Commissioner Mohammad Abdul Mobarak.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed has earlier said that the local polls would have to be held in December because an updated voter list will have to be published by January 31; there will be SSC examinations in February and HSC examinations in March.
On Thursday, the ruling Awami League decided to nominate single candidates for the municipal mayors based on recommendations by local leaders. It has asked its grassroots leaders to send names by tomorrow.
All the front-line political parties have already wrote to the EC informing their respective persons with the authority to nominate.
For the ruling party, it is Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. For main opposition in parliament Jatiya Party, it is their Chairman HM Ershad, who is also a special envoy to the PM.
For the BNP, one of its Joint Secretaries General Mohammad Shahjahan will nominate candidates. The former Noakhali MP will do the job because the party’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is in jail and most other joint secretaries general are either on the run or behind bars.
There is a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami’s participation in any kind of polls because its registration with the EC was annulled.
Recently, Bikalpadhara Bangladesh, led by the country’s former president AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury, circulated an advertisement, asking interested candidates looking for nomination to contact them.
Independent mayoral candidates will also be able to run in the municipal polls, if they can gather the support of at least 100 voters from their respective areas. Former mayors will not need to submit any such lists if they wish run independently.
