DHAKA, 6 April 2007 — Bangladesh’s Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M. Shamsul Huda yesterday ruled out new polls before late 2008 saying it was the minimum time needed to revise the country’s voters list.
“We will need at least 18 months to prepare the voters list. Pragmatically speaking, this is the least amount of time we need to prepare the ground for credible elections,” Huda said. “The army would prepare the new list of voters,” he added.
After months of violent political turmoil, Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed canceled polls slated for late January and declared a state of emergency, paving the way for the installation of a military-backed government.
The new government vowed to clean up politics and installed new chiefs at the election commission to carry out sweeping reforms, including coming up with a new voters list with no errors.
The main opposition Awami League had complained ahead of the January polls that the voters list prepared by a previous election commission contained millions of fake names.
It also alleged that the then chief election commissioner supported the outgoing Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led coalition.
Yesterday Huda, appointed by the new government, said concerns would be addressed in the new list. There would also be improved voter ID, he added.
“It is a huge task and we want to do it the best way possible. The United Nations is helping us with consultants and financing the huge project,” he said. “We are taking time because we don’t want to hold farcical elections.” The government, now led by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed, has launched a massive anti-graft crackdown in the past three months which has included the arrests of more than 45 high-profile politicians.
It also banned political activity for an indefinite period.
But Huda said the commission had asked the government to lift the ban so that it could hold talks with the political parties on the proposed reforms.
“We urged the law adviser (current justice minister) to lift the ban on indoor politics. We cannot hold talks with the parties unless the ban is withdrawn. He said he would discuss the issue with the head of the interim government,” Huda said.
“In the meantime, we will talk with the civil society about the reforms. And everything we are doing is to hold free and fair elections in the country.” Yesterday, the commission also unveiled tough new candidate eligibility rules, saying these would be enacted by July this year.
Under the reforms, the government would bar loan and utility bill defaulters from taking part in any future polls while political parties would have to declare the sources of their funds.
Bangladesh had 75.1 million registered voters in the national election in 2001, election commission officials said.
A new list prepared in 2006 with 91.4 million voters was scrapped by the interim government for deliberately incorporating up to 14 million “ghost” voters.
The government insists that holding a free and credible election is a priority, but it first wants to complete a crackdown on corruption. Since January, security forces have detained more than 160 key political figures for alleged graft and abuse of power. They include Tareque Rahman, son of the most recent prime minister, Khaleda Zia, who was detained on March 7.
Yesterday, Tareque was taken to a so-called quick trial court to be formally charged, but the case was adjourned until April 17, court officials said.
