The Election Commission said that local government elections will take more than one year to be completed.
The commission said that it will take more than a year to complete the elections for city corporations, zilla parishad, upazila parishad, and municipalities across the country before the national parliament elections.
The constitutional body says: “It is not possible to hold local and national elections simultaneously.” This may result in a delay in national elections; the body expressed its thought.
EC officials say that considering the law and order situation in the country, local elections will have to be held in stages.
“In this case, it is not possible to hold all the elections at the same time. City corporations; upazila and municipality elections will have to be held separately in stages,” officials said, adding: “About 800-900 union parishad are suitable for elections.”
“In total, it may take a year to complete the local elections.” The officials said that they have to postpone elections for few months ahead of Ramadan, the monsoon, and SSC, HSC exams.
The Local Government Reform Commission submitted its “initial recommendations” for the reforms to the interim government on Wednesday. In its recommendations, the commission said that two consolidated local government laws for five institutions should be formulated through an ordinance by next April.
After formation of the laws, elections for all the plains and hills, unions, upazilas and zilla parishad, and municipalities and city corporations can be held by June. In addition, The Hill District Local Government Council Act, 1989, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council Act, 1998 can also be incorporated into the parliamentary structure and the elections for the two hill councils can be completed by June.
Meanwhile, Election Commissioner Brig. Gen. (Retd.)Abdul Fazal Md. Sanaullah said regarding the local government elections: “There has been a discussion on how long the elections will take. It is not possible to hold both local and national elections simultaneously.”
“In the past, we have seen that it takes a year to hold local elections. This will delay the national elections. The EC is thinking about the national elections. In this case, it will be the way the government decides,” he continued.
He added that if local elections are held on a large scale, they had said earlier that if all five levels are to be held, local elections will take about a year. So it is not possible to provide a timeline.
The sixth upazila parishad election in 2024 was held in four phases in May-June. In 2019, the fifth upazila parishad election was held in five phases. In 2014, the fourth upazila parishad election was held in six phases. However, after the upazila parishad was launched in 1985, voting was held on one day in 1990 and 2009.
On the other hand, the previous Election Commission held elections in several municipalities whose terms had expired on a small scale in 2023 and 2024. And out of the 300 municipalities, in the first phase of 2020, voting was held in 25 municipalities using EVMs on 28th December. Then, in the second phase, voting was held in 61 municipalities on 16th January 2021. The third phase of voting was held in late January and the fourth phase in mid-February. The schedule for the municipal elections was announced on 24th November 2015. The voting date was announced on 30th December, with a 36-day deadline. Voting was held in 234 municipalities in one day.
Translated by AM
