Ehsanul Haque Jasim :
The Election Commission (EC) is going to announce polls schedule for 236 municipalities in the country today, fixing December 30 as the polls date.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the commission held in the EC Secretariat on Monday evening with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad in the chair.
Election Commissioner Abul Mobarak said that December 30 has been fixed for the municipal polls. The CEC will officially announce the schedule on Tuesday, he informed.
According to the EC Secretariat sources, the last date for nomination submission will be fixed December 3, while nomination will be scrutinised on December 5 and 6 and the last date for nomination withdrawal will be December 13.
Earlier, another Election Commissioner Md Shahnewaz told The New Nation that they would announce the schedule of the first ever party-basis municipal polls just after the Law Ministry completes the vetting activities of the electoral code of conduct and relevant regulations.
The EC on Sunday sent the electoral code of conduct and the operation regulations to the ministry for the second time for vetting.
Meanwhile, the ‘Local Government (Pourashava) (Amendment), Bill, 2015’ was passed in the Parliament on last Wednesday. President Abdul Hamid assented to it on Saturday. The bill was returned to the EC Secretariat on Sunday. According to the latest bill, only mayoral candidates will be nominated from political parties and complete with their party symbols while councillor candidates remain non-partisan. For this reason, the EC had to re-send the code of conduct and the operation regulations to the Law Ministry for the second time.
The EC earlier sent the electoral code of conduct and the regulations to the Law Ministry for vetting on November 5. The ministry had disagreed on some points of the code of conduct, including campaign by ministers and MPs.
According to sources of EC Secretariat, the commission has already directed its officials in all municipalities across the country to select polling stations and keep voter lists ready.
The EC also asked the secretaries of education ministry and primary and mass education ministry to keep ready their educational institutions under municipality areas to be used for polling centres.
