Staff Reporter :
Chief Election Commission (CEC) KM Nurul Huda on Tuesday said that he cannot guarantee there will be no irregularities at all in the general elections.
The CEC said this while talking to reporters after inaugurating a workshop at the Election Training Institute in the capital.
Following the irregularities in five city corporation elections, many expressed their apprehensions regarding the coming fair national elections.
According to the existing constitutional provision, the 11th Parliamentary Election is scheduled to be held by the third week of January 2019 keeping Awami League party President Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister.
Sheikh Hasina has already announced that the next general elections will be held in December.
The CEC said, “We don’t think such irregularities like the city polls will occur in the national elections. But we can’t ensure that there will be no irregularity anywhere in a national level election.”
“We will investigate and take necessary action if we receive complaints of anomalies,” he added.
The CEC, in reply to a question of the reporters that Gono Forum President Dr. Kamal Hossain has recently said the nation does not trust the Election Commission anymore, said, “I don’t know how Kamal Hossain read the thoughts of the whole nation. Did all the people come and tell him to say that? I don’t know.”
“There were arbitrary irregularities in some places in the city corporation elections. Such anomalies happen. We took necessary action in such cases. Voting in many polling centres has been suspended in Barishal till date,” he added.
Citing the current student movement for safe roads, Nurul Huda said, it has nothing to do with the national elections. “Voting in the national elections will take place according to the Constitution.”
A former bureaucrat, Nurul Huda was appointed the CEC during the Sheikh Hasina-led regime in February of 2017.
