EC to consider common suggestions made during the dialogues

The Election Commission (EC) will consider all proposals that were in common during their dialogues with the civil society, political parties and the media for the up-coming general elections. Speaking to the media after dialogues with two political parties on Monday, the Election Commission’s acting secretary Helaluddin Ahmad said: “There were some common suggestions made during the dialogues such as the deployment of the army during the elections, eradication of strong arming voters and black money. These will be considered to be incorporated into our election plan.” Monday’s dialogue Bangladesh Muslim League (BML) in the morning and Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish in the afternoon. Both the parties on Monday proposed the deployment of the army with magisterial powers during the elections, the dissolving of the parliament before the polls, the handing over power to the subsidiary government/caretaker government, organising national dialogue, withdrawal of political cases during the election, stopping the influence of power and black money, empowering the election commission, a the relaxing the rule stipulated by the EC to ensure 33% of party leaders to be women. The acting EC secretary said: “We have assured both of the parties that the EC will do everything to ensure fair elections.” When asked about their demand for the withdrawal of politically motivated cases made by both the parties, EC’s Helaluddin said: “The commission cannot determine with absolute certainty which cases are politically motivated and which ones are not. We cannot recommend the withdrawal of them since they involve the burning of buses where people died.” Helaluddin Ahmed further added: “We sent a letter to political parties about to ensuring that 33% of their leadership roles would have comprised of women. Most of the parties replied positively except seven of them. “They assured us that, by 2020, they will be able to fulfill the conditions having 33% of women leadership.”