Staff Reporter :The Election Commission (EC) has announced polls schedule for 234 municipalities in the country, fixing December 30 as the voting date in these civic bodies. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad announced the schedule of country’s first-ever party-basis municipal polls in a press briefing in the Media Centre of the EC Secretariat on Tuesday.As per the schedule, the deadline for the submission of nomination papers is December 3 and the nominations will be scrutinised on December 5 and 6, while the last date of the withdrawal of candidature is December 13.Earlier, the EC planned to announce the polls schedule on Monday, but it could not do this for not receiving the copies of vetted election rules and the electoral code of conduct from the Law Ministry.The Commission on Sunday sent the election rules and the code of conduct to the Law Ministry for the second time for vetting in view of the recent amendment to the ‘Local Government (Pourashava) Act, 2009’. The ‘Local Government (Pourashava) (Amendment), Bill, 2015′ was passed in the Parliament on November 19, paving the way to arrange the election only in the mayor post of the municipality on party-basis. However, according to the latest bill, the councillor candidates, including the reserve seats for women, will contest the elections in non-partisan manner under the existing system. The country has 324 municipalities. The tenures of about 240 municipalities out of 324 are going to end in the beginning of 2016. According to the electoral laws, the EC has to hold elections to municipalities within the latest 90 days of the incumbent mayors’ tenures. Elections will be held in 234 in a single day on December 30. The elections in the remaining municipalities will be held on completion of their tenures.The municipalities have nearly seven million voters. With each municipality having 11 wards on average, voting will be held in around 2,500 wards. Apart from 234 mayors, the voters will elect 2,500 councillors and over 800 women councillors in the reserved seats.
