Half of elected women local govt officials against polls on party lines

Half of the elected women local government officials are against a government decision to let political parties directly contest local body elections.

This has come to light in a survey by private development agency Khan Foundation’s research wing ‘Aparajita’.
 
The report says half the elected women people’s representatives do not want local government polls to be held along party lines.
 
The survey shows 48 percent of the women representatives backed the government decision, two percent were undecided, and the rest 50 percent did not approve of it.
 
The findings were made public at a seminar held at the CIRDUP auditorium in Dhaka on Monday.
 
The Cabinet, in its meeting on Monday chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, cleared amendments of five laws aimed to pave the way for the fielding of political party candidates and the use of party symbols in elections to Zila Parishads, Upazila Parishad, Union Parishad, municipalities, and city corporations.
 
Several Union Parishad elections fall due at the end of this year and the beginning of the next.
 
The Awami League-led government had long been in favour of changing the existing law but the amendment process had been stuck all this while.
 
The BNP, however, sees the move as a ‘conspiracy’ on the part of the government.
 
Morshed Alam, the Monitoring and Reporting Manager of Khan Foundation, said the survey had a sample size of 1,200.
 
The report says 57 percent of the women representatives are part of some political party or the other.