Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury has become the first Bangladeshi to be elected the chairperson of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).
Published : 09 Oct 2014, 08:49 PM
The election took place on Thursday at the 60th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Cameroon’s Yaoundé.
Bangladesh’s first woman speaker Chaudhury will head the 35-strong executive committee of the CPA for the next three years.
Her only rival was Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly Speaker Juliana O’Connor-Connolly.
Chaudhury’s personal secretary Md Kamal Billah told bdnews24.com by telephone from Yaoundé: “Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury bagged 70 votes while her contender got 67 votes.”
He said the Speaker thanked all CPA member-states for electing her to the association’s top position.
“She wished to attain the goal and objectives of CPA together with those who didn’t support her,” Billah said.
Though Chaudhury is the first Bangladeshi to assume the top CPA office, India’s West Bengal provincial parliament member Hashim Abdul Halim was elected the association chief for 2005-08 term as the first Bengali.
Chaudhury was born on Oct 6, 1966 in Dhaka to Rafiqullah Chaudhury, the Personal Secretary of Bangladesh's founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Professor Naiyer Sultana, a member of the then Public Service Commission.
She did her LLB (Honours) from the Dhaka University in 1989, and cleared the LLM a year later.
Chaudhury had gone to the UK on a Commonwealth Scholarship and completed her PhD in human rights and constitutional laws from the Essex University in 2000.
She enrolled at the Bar Council in 1992 and with the High Court two years later. In 2008, she was enrolled with the Appellate Division.
Chaudhury became a member of the Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and Dhaka Bar Association in 2000.
She was elected MP uncontested in the by-election in Rangpur’s Pirganj constituency in this year.