BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has said the government can kick-start a dialogue on constituting the next Election Commission based on the proposals she put forward on Friday.
“I’ve presented a plan for an effective EC. Talks on truly fair polls on this basis can be initiated. The government can also use this option,” the BNP chief said in a Twitter message on Saturday.
On Friday, she presented a 13-point proposal on the formation of the next EC ahead of the end of the tenure of the current one early next year.
She proposed the formation of a Search Committee through consensus involving ‘all parties’ – every registered political party or those elected to Parliament ever since independence – to constitute the new EC.
The term of the current EC headed by Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad will end in February next year. The 11th parliamentary election, scheduled for 2019, will be held under the newly constituted EC.
Terming the current CEC a puppet of the Awami League government, the BNP chief in her proposal demanded that the 11th general election be held under the supervision of a ‘neutral, polls-time supporting government’.
The Awami League rejected her proposal, terming it ‘hollow’. The ruling party’s General Secretary Obaidul Quader said Khaleda’s proposal was ‘devoid of substance’ and ‘nothing but a joke on the nation’.
He said there was no scope of turning away from the system following which the current EC was formed by the president in 2012 after dialogues with various political parties, including the BNP.
Source: bdnews24
