Mahbub Talukdar wants EC to have greater authority

Election Commissioner Mahbub Talukdar says it is necessary to reform local government elections and their management to give the Election Commission more power.

He proposed this to ensure greater participation of all parties in the polls and boost voter turnout after the ongoing upazila election lost its lustre.

The election commissioner held a press conference at his own office in the election commission belting after voting began in the second phase of the upazila elections on Monday.

In addition to presenting his statement, Talukdar also took questions from reporters.

Mahbub Talukdar said that electoral reforms are needed in order to make elections meaningful and maintain democracy. But electoral reforms are not up to the EC, but are instead a political decision, he said.

“How the local government elections will be held and how open they are is set by the government. Hopefully we can conduct open, fair, acceptable, trustworthy, legal and free polls with equal opportunities for all candidates, where all parties can participate.

He has urged for the EC to be granted greater powers to be able to do so.

“If the EC is entrusted with the decisions of when the election will be held and how, then there will no longer be concern about the turnout,” he said.

He spoke of the discussions with reporters on Monday.

“In the past few days some journalists have asked me about the general and local elections. I have nothing new to say on the general election. Conscientious people have an answer regarding how the eleventh national parliamentary election went.”

He said that those involved in the election will never be able to give proper answers regarding it.

“No one can be happy with dishonest polls,” he said, pointing to Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon’s comments about restoring the stature of elections.