The Election Commission (EC) will finalise the roadmap for the 11th national election on May 23 next.
“The Commission has expressed its satisfaction seeing the roadmap drafted by its officials, and the EC decided to finalise it at a meeting on May 23 next after detailed discussions,” EC secretary Muhammad Abdullah told reporters at Nirbachan Bhaban on Sunday. He came up with the remark after placing the draft roadmap at the Commission’s meeting held with Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda in the chair. Noting that there are 23 main agenda in the draft roadmap, the EC Secretary said, “The action plan (roadmap) will be a public document once the commission finalises it. It’ll make it public in a book form.”
About EC’s dialogue schedule with political parties, the EC Secretary said it is not possible right now to say exactly when the dialogues will be held as the roadmap is yet to be finalised.
He, however, said a proposal was incorporated in the draft roadmap to arrange the dialogues with registered political parties by December next. Replying to a question over the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the next general election, Abdullah said, “It’s not the right time to say whether the EVMs will be used in the election. It’ll take more time as the EVMs must be examined before introducing those in the polls.” He said, the commission has also decided to seek public opinion over the proposed amendment to the election observer guidelines. “The draft guidelines will be uploaded on EC’s website to seek public opinion for a week before finalising it.”
Officials at the EC Secretariat said though there was a plan to form four committees-promotion of EC officers, election law reform, making smart NID card distribution easier and reshuffling the EC’s organisational structure— at Sunday’s meeting, the commission decided to form the four committees on May 23. Besides, the commission decided that they would not open the floodgate for correcting the data of dead persons in the NID cards and NID server, they said.
