Two cannot join for violating polls code
Two hundred and eighty-nine MPs elected in the 10th parliamentary polls are set to take oath today, amid the opposition’s allegation that the government has been violating the constitution by keeping two parliaments alive simultaneously.
Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury told the Dhaka Tribune that she would administer oath to the newly elected MPs at 10am as the Election Commission published the gazette yesterday.
According to the parliament practices, 228 MPs belonging to the Awami League will first take oath in the oath room of the Jatiya Sangsad. Oath taking by the other MPs will follow.
Sheikh Hasina has vacated the Rangpur 6 seat to represent the seat in Gopalganj 3.
The gazette says the other MPs are: 33 from Jatiya Party (Ershad), six from Workers Party, five from Jatiya Samajtatrik Dal, 14 independent, and one each from the Jatiya Party (Manju), Tariqat Federation and Bangladesh Nationalist Front.
It has excluded the names of Sk Afil Uddin (Jessore 1) and Monirul Islam (Jessore 2) as the Election Commission has been investigating allegations of electoral code of conduct violation by the two Awami League candidates.
If proven, their nomination papers may be cancelled, EC officials have said.
The gazette did not contain the names of eight constituencies where the Election Commission has announced re-elections for violence that disrupted polls.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties have claimed that the article 123 (3) (b) of the constitution debars the MPs of a new parliament from “assuming office” without the expiration of the stipulated five years of the previous parliament.
According to the opposition allegations, the MPs cannot take oath before January 24 when the current ninth parliament will expire after five years.
The government had not dissolved the ninth parliament till filing of the report at 8pm yesterday.
“I do not know whether the government will dissolve parliament. According to the constitution, the speaker is not the authority to dissolve parliament,” Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury told the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday at her office.
“I am under constitutional obligation to administer oath in three days after the publication of the gazette by the Election Commission,” she said.
The speaker said it was a question whether the words “assuming the office” and “taking oath” could be interpreted differently.
“Our position is there cannot be two parliaments simultaneously; this is violation of the constitution. They [government] must dissolve the ninth parliament right now,” Lt Gen (Retd) Mahbubur Rahman, a member of the BNP’s highest policy making standing committee, told the Dhaka Tribune.
The Awami League will then hold the meeting of the parliamentary party and select the leader of the house, who would form the government.
According to the constitution, the president must convene parliament in 30 days since oath taking.
After taking oath, the new MPs will join a meeting of the Awami League Parliamentary Party to re-elect Sheikh Hasina as its leader and eventually she will form the new government, Chief Whip Abdus Shahid told the Dhaka Tribune after a meeting with Hasina at her Ganabhaban residence.
The 10th parliament will start its journey after termination of the ninth parliament on January 24, he said.
“The newly elected prime minister will request the president to convene the first session of the 10th parliament after January 24,” Shahid said. “The newly elected MPs of the 10th parliament will assume office as members of parliament with the commencement of its first session.”
The current ninth parliament started on January 25, 2009 and is set to end on January 24, 2014, according to the constitution.
When asked, Barrister Shafique Ahmed, the immediate past law minister and prime minister’s law affairs adviser, said he was not in a position to talk on this issue.
The debate over timing of taking office by the newly elected MPs of the 10th parliament arises following insertion of an article the original 1972 constitution contained. The article stipulates holding of the general elections 90 days before the expiry of the previous parliament.
In line with the article, the Election Commission arranged the 10th national polls on January 5, without dissolution of the ninth parliament.
Though inserted in 1972, the article of holding polls 90 days before the expiry of legislation could not be implemented because of interruption of the democratic practices. All the previous parliaments up to 1996 were dissolved before five years.
The BNP-led parliament that lasted for only 12 days dropped the provision, inserting the arrangement of the non-party caretaker government which used to assume office after the completion of the mandated five years.
The non-party caretaker government, now demanded by the BNP, used to hold general election 90 days after the end of a parliament. The last caretaker government was in power for about two years beyond constitutional approval and arranged the ninth general polls on December 29, 2008.
On June 30, 2011, the Awami League government, in line with a directive of the Supreme Court, dropped the non-party caretaker government and restored the original provision of holding elections under the incumbent government in 90 days before expiry of the previous parliament.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
As a political party Awami League (AL) has had the unique distinction of being “first’ in many things, some good, others not so good – it is the first political party in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) that stood against the tyrannical rule of the Pakistanis for democracy and freedom that at the end lead to the creation of independent state of Bangladesh; after independence, an elected AL government has also been the first in the world to transform a democratic polity into a one-party system with only 15 minutes of discussions in the parliament; it is also the first of the political parties that fought for and introduced an innovation in democracy, namely, the provision of a poll-time care-taker government for fair election; and it is also the first to scuttle the very system they themselves enacted and benefited from and now a win an in election without a contestt.
Awami League’s record of being first in things has stayed untainted.