Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad on Sunday said there is no scope of extending the deadline for submission of nomination papers due to time constraint as the election is billed for January 5.
“The December 2 deadline for submission of nomination papers will remain unchanged. There’ll be no change in this regard due to time constraint,” the CEC told reporters while leaving his EC secretariat office in the evening.
The CEC came up with the remark apparently turning down Jatiya Party’s (Ershad) demand for time extension for the submission of nomination papers.
About Jatiya Party’s six-point demand, Rakibuddin said the commission meeting will decide its demands except the one seeking time extension for nomination submission.
The EC boss, however, dropped a hint at rescheduling the election in case of a political compromise between the two major political parties. “Many avenues will remain open, if the opposition joins the election through a political compromise. We’re always for a compromise.”
As his attention was drawn to EU Ambassador William Hanna’s remark that the EU is yet to decide whether it’ll send election observers, the CEC said the commission usually invites all oversees monitoring agencies after the announcement of election schedule informing them about the voting date. “We’ll also invite them. The EU will sign an agreement with the foreign ministry in this regard.”
He said the commission held a meeting with law enforcing agencies. The agencies assured the commission of providing security to voters and foreign observers.
On November 25, the CEC declared the schedule for the country’s 10th parliamentary elections.
The deadline for nomination submission is December 2, while the dates for the scrutiny of nomination papers are December 5 and 6 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is December 13.
Source: UNBConnect
