Sagar Biswas :
The Election Commission is going to initiate ‘marathon dialogue’ with the political parties, civil society members and other stakeholders on Monday, apparently to pave the way to hold the next parliamentary election free, fair and impartial.
EC officials told The New Nation on Saturday the main objective of holding the dialogue is to ensure holding of upcoming national elections “free from money and muscle” and create a “level playing field” for all parties.
In the first phase, the EC will sit with the civil society members at 11:00am tomorrow at Nirbachon Bhaban in the city’s Agargaon.
In the next phases, it will hold dialogues with election experts, media personalities, women leaderships, election observer organizations, former election commissioners, political parties and others. In the marathon dialogue till October next, the EC will take suggestions from the participants over the recently placed roadmap, the work plan for the next parliamentary polls due between October 30, 2018 and January 28, 2019.
Election Commission Secretary Muhammad Abdulla had said the commission will execute its roadmap based on the suggestions and recommendations put forward by the participants.
“The commission will hold talks with media personalities in August. Later, it will hold dialogue with the 40 registered political parties in August and September. In fact, the commission will discuss with the parties how to reform the electoral process and make it modern,” he said.
Officials said seven issues have been prioritised in the EC’s roadmap include constituency boundary re-demarcation, review of the electoral law and holding of dialogue with the stakeholders, registration of new political parties, audit of registered political parties and suggestions from civil society members.
At the same time, the commission has taken initiatives to complete the delimitations of the 300 parliamentary constituencies by December.
“About 59 representatives from the civil society have been invited for dialogue tomorrow [Monday]. The agenda of dialogue has been fixed in line with the roadmap,” Director of public relations at the EC Secretariat M Asaduzzaman said.
The civil society members who are expected to join tomorrow’s dialogue include former advisers to the caretaker governments Dr Akbar Ali Khan, M Hafiz Uddin Khan, Advocate Sultana Kamal, Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud, Rasheda K Chowdhury, Mirza Azizul Islam, Rokeya Afzal Rahman and Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman.
Besides, Justice Ghulam Rabbani, former Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Farash Uddin, Barrister Rafiqul Haque, Dr Shahdeen Malik, former Cabinet Secretary Ali Inam Mazumder, former Secretary Dr Saadat Husain, CPD fellow Dr Devapriya Bhattacharya, Professor Dr Zamilur Reza Chowdhury, Major (retd) SM Shamshul Arefin, Professor Nazrul Islam, Professor Dr Ajoy Roy, Dr Kazi Kholikuzzaman Ahmad and professor Syed Anwar Hossain have been invited to attend the dialogue.
Apart from them, professor MM Akash, Professor Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Professor Asif Nazrul, Professor Tasneen Siddiqui, Professor Dilara Chowdhury, professor Abul Barakat, Dr Tareq Shamshur Rahman, Columnist Syed Abul Maksud and Executive Director of TIB Dr Iftekheruzzaman have also been invited to attend the dialogue.
EC officials said the commission at first will publish a draft of the suggestions to be made by the participants in the dialogues. Later, the commission will finalise the suggestions in December.
According to the officials, the commission has already formed four committees to implement the action plan. Besides, it has decided to engage two consultants to assist the committees regarding the delimitation of the constituencies and reforms in electoral law.
The 10th parliamentary election held on January 5, 2014 had drawn widespread criticism at home and abroad as all opposition political parties boycotted the polls. The candidates in 153 of the 300 constituencies were elected without any voting in that election.
