Staff Reporter :
The Election Commission is trying to create trust among political parties through holding dialogues to hold the 11th parliamentary election inclusive.
According to the draft roadmap of EC, it wants to arrange the general election in between December 26
and 31, 2018 to avoid any possible legal complexity over holding it after January 2, 2019.
Officials said that the EC will initiate talks with registered political parties at least in two phases to finalise its important decisions on 23 agendas, including introducing Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in the polls.
The commission will hold its first phase of dialogues with the parties in August this year to get their opinions over the use of EVM or Digital Voting machine (DVM) in the polls. It will also seek opinions on reform of electoral laws and delimitation of parliamentary constituencies.
It will hold the second phase of such talks in August-November next year to finalise decisions over holding free and fair polls.
The EC roadmap will come up for discussion in the Commissions meeting today (Sunday).
“We will finalise the roadmap in mid-July and then sit with political parties, media, donor agencies and other stakeholders,” Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda told a group of journalists on Saturday.
The agendas include registration of new political parties during October 2017-February 2018 and voter updating programme during September 2017-January 2018, arrangement of Rangpur City Corporation election by December next and completion of elections to five other City Corporations- Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Sylhet and Gazipur-by August 2018. The Commission also plans to arrange elections to the five City Corporations in one day in mid-2018 as it has a constitutional obligation to conduct the next general polls between October 30, 2018 and January 28, 2019.
It will also finalise selection of possible polling stations by June 2018 and publishing the names of those in the gazette 25 days before the announcement of election schedule and completing the appointment of polling officials 10 days before the announcement of the election schedule.
