Election Commission (EC) has already finalized the roadmap for 12th parliamentary elections which is planned to be held in January 2024.
According to EC officials, EC will have two types of plans for the 12th parliamentary elections. First of all, they can announce schedule in mid-November next year and organize the election on January 2024.
Or, they can announce schedule in early-November next year and organize the election on December same year. In this case, if the roadmap is announced in this month, EC will have 15 months to conduct the elections, they said.
Meanwhile, preparations for the parliamentary elections are going on quietly. The new EC has already completed the first phase of the electoral dialogue ahead of the 12th parliamentary elections. Representation of People Order (RPO) has sent the draft amendment proposal to the Ministry. The work of updating the voter list is going on. The process of registering new party is also underway. Already, Election Commissioners including CEC have approved the roadmap file. It is in print now.
An election commissioner said the roadmap could be announced any day this week. We have approved the file. It’s now printing.
EC officials said that preparations for the 12th parliamentary elections are underway. The election commissioners are giving various instructions regarding the parliamentary elections.
Calculations are being made on how the voting might cost. The areas where conflicts occurred in the 11th parliamentary elections are being identified, they said.
The 11th parliamentary election was held on December 30, 2018 and first parliament session held on January 30, 2019. As such, the term of the current parliament is up to January 30, 2024.
In the case of organizing elections, the constitution has mentioned 90 days before the end of the term of parliament. So there is a constitutional obligation to organize the 12th Parliament election within 90 days prior to January 30, 2024.
For that, EC can announce roadmap in any day. After that, the commission will hold a dialogue or workshop with various stakeholders including political parties and civil society in October.
In the roadmap for 12th parliamentary elections, electoral law reforms, challenges of the 12th parliament elections, effective methods to deal with the challenges, several issues including the use of EVMs in how many seats are getting priority.
EC officials said that the current EC has started some work before the roadmap was announced. Notifications have already been issued for registration of political parties. Applications for party registration must be submitted by October.
Apart from this, the preliminary report of the census has been published. After publishing the final report, the EC will start the work of delimiting the parliamentary seats, they said.
However, the EC is thinking of starting the process of delimitation of 300 seats by next January and the target of completion is being kept by June.
@The article was published on print and online versions of Bangladesh Pratidin on September 11, 2022 and has been rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan.
