President Hamid to end talks over EC formation on Jan 17 and form ‘search committee’

President Abdul Hamid will end his discussions with the registered political parties on the formation of a new Election Commission at the Bangabhaban on Jan 17.

The ruling Awami League will be the last political party to participate in the talks.

Following the talks, a search committee will be formed. The committee will shortlist names of possible candidates for the posts of election commissioner and their chief to the president.

President Hamid will pick from those names and form a new Election Commission, which will oversee the 12th national election in 2023.

President Hamid opened the talks on Dec 20. The Jatiya Party, the opposition party in parliament, was the first one to meet with him. The Awami League is scheduled to meet the president at the Bangabhaban at 4 pm on Jan 17.

A 10-member delegation of the Awami League, led by its chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is likely to go to Bangabhaban on that day.

“The Cabinet Division will perform the secretarial tasks to form a search committee and they’ll announce it,” said president’s Press Secretary Md Joynal Abedin, when asked who will comprise the committee.

The process of forming a search committee may be the same as last time, said a Bangabhaban official. With a Supreme Court judge as its convener, it is likely to include a High Court judge, a chairman of the Public Service Commission and the comptroller and auditor general of Bangladesh, he said. Also, two civil society members, including a woman, may be part of the committee.

The search committee will be formed soon after the end of the talks, as the Election Commission needs to be formed before the current commission’s tenure is over, said another Bangabhaban official.

“Also, the search committee may ask the political parties to propose names for the search committee, meaning they will need time to discuss,” he said.

In the absence of a law to appoint election commissioners, the powers to appoint an election commissioner are vested in the president, according to the Constitution.

As a law to constitute the Election Commission has not been made in the 50 years since the country's independence, the process of appointing election commissioners sparks controversy in the political arena every time. The system of appointing them through a search committee has failed to quell the debate.

Like the last two times, the head of the state opened the talks over EC formation and invited 32 political parties to the Bangabhaban.

The BNP, which wants an apolitical caretaker government in power in the lead up to the general election, had announced a boycott of the dialogue this time, describing it as “farce”. Some other political parties including CPB, BaSad and JSD have also said they would not take part in the talks.

Most of the political parties that participated in the talks spoke about following the constitution on the formation of the EC. Some of them have raised the issue of interim government during the election.

The government had appointed five commissioners in the past two commissions. The EC has its commissioners appointed for five years and all of them hold the same degree of power, while a chief election commissioner is appointed to ensure coordination.

The current EC, led by KM Nurul Huda, will end its tenure on Feb 14 and the president must form a new commission before that deadline.