Dhaka, Aug 14 (PTI) Bangladesh’s Election Commission on Thursday said it would present a roadmap next week regarding the general elections to be held in February next year, amid fresh speculations over the fate of the polls.
“We expect to present you the roadmap next week,” Election Commission (EC) Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed told a media briefing.
Asked what the “roadmap” would contain, he said it would be self-explanatory “which could not be exactly explained right now” but added that the roadmap would detail the meetings with stakeholders and the amendment of rules.
Interim government’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on August 5 said the general elections would be held in February while the EC subsequently announced the polls would be held in the first week.
The announcement came amid prolonged demands from former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and several other parties and civic figures for a quick election to hand over power to an elected government.
The BNP emerged as the single largest party in Awami League’s absence after Yunus’ government disbanded its activities under an executive order.
A violent street protest by Students Against Discrimination (SAD) ousted the Awami League government on August 5, 2024.
Three days after Hasina fled the country, Yunus took over as the chief adviser on August 8. A large offshoot of the SAD formed the National Citizen Party (NCP) in February this year.
Speculations over the election erupted as NCP leaders dismissed the prospect of a general election taking place in February next year without reforms and the trials initiated by the interim government remaining unfinished.
The stance of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which visibly developed closer ties with NCP, further complicated the scenario as its leaders were demanding the introduction of a proportional representation (PR) system.
Under the proportional representation (PR) system, voters vote for parties, not individual candidates and the number of seats a party receives in parliament corresponds to the percentage of votes it gets nationwide.
“If the election takes place in February, this government will have to return the bodies of my brothers who were martyred, who shed blood for reforms … If not, there will be no election,” NCP’s chief coordinator Nasiruddin Patwary told a party rally on Wednesday.
Patwary challenged the official election plan saying the proposed deadline was “unrealistic”.
Jamaat’s Nayeb-e-Ameer Dr Syed Abdullah Muhammad Taher, meanwhile, in a party rally on the same day reiterated the party’s support for the proportional representation (PR) system saying “democracy means respecting the majority’s voice”.
In an apparent reference to the BNP, he said yet one political party opposes it because “PR elections would prevent vote theft and curb authoritarian exploitation”.
Taher simultaneously criticised months of government-sponsored meetings, also joined by his party, “under the guise of reform”.
He said the talks were yet to yield any legal basis for the reforms, and urged authorities not to “deceive the public”. PTI AR GSP GSP
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