Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad says they are waiting for the laws to be amended to organise the local government polls on political party lines.
Published : 27 Oct 2015, 04:30 PM
“We’re waiting. We’ll have to work in line with the law. We won’t get much time. We can’t make any move until we get the copies of the (amended) laws,” he said on Tuesday.
His remarks came as an ordinance is yet to be issued even though two weeks have passed since the Cabinet cleared the drafts for amendments to election laws for Union and Upazila councils, municipalities and city corporations.
Ahmad spoke to journalists on the issue after a meeting with the representatives of Dhaka North City Corporation at the NEC auditorium in Dhaka.
The EC has plans to announce the schedule for the municipality polls in November.
The CEC said they were working to prepare the electoral code of conduct for that vote.
Due to lack of time, the ordinance was supposed to be issued for amending the municipality polls law, which will be later passed in Parliament going into session from Nov 8.
The proposed amendments to laws regarding polls for other local government bodies will also be placed in Parliament as bills for passage in due course.
The new amendments will allow political parties to field candidates for the local elections with their poll symbols.
“The Cabinet has cleared the amendments. We’re waiting for the ordinance. We’ve started the process to prepare the code of conduct because we’ll get less time for the municipality polls,” said Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad.
He hoped that the ordinance would be issued before Parliament resumes session.
“If not, they will be placed in Parliament. We need time for that, and that’s why we’ve started preparations.
"Once we get the amended law, we’ll take steps to issue the code of conduct in a short time,” he added.
‘Run as independent’
The CEC Ahmad on Tuesday suggested aspirants from new parties to contest the local government polls as independent candidates.
Until now, smaller or new political parties could, like others, field their candidates as polls to local bodies were non-partisan.
But after the amendments, only the 40 parties registered with the Election Commission would be able to field candidates.
Ahmad said they would not be able to give the new parties a chance to register before the local government polls due to lack of time.
Meanwhile, the CEC sought help from the Dhaka North City Corporation mayor and councillors during his meeting to remove the names of deceased persons from the updated voter list.
He said they were putting extra effort in both Dhaka and Chittagong cities to remove the names of dead voters from the list.
The Election Commission would very soon sit with the representatives of Dhaka South and Chittagong city corporations, Ahmad added.