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EC to talk atmosphere for city polls with CA

Lifting or relaxing emergency to feature high on today's talk

Shakhawat Liton
The Election Commission (EC) is scheduled to meet Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed today to discuss creation of an environment conducive to holding the due polls to five city corporations in April, under the emergency regime.
Over the last few months the chief election commissioner (CEC) has been saying that the state of emergency either has to be lifted or relaxed to hold credible elections through allowing electoral candidates to hold election campaigns.
In the electoral roadmap announced on July 15 last year, the EC had promised to begin holding the due polls to different local government bodies in January this year, but by the end of the year the commission changed the promise by saying it wall hold the polls to the five city corporations in April instead.
CEC ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday talked to the chief adviser over the phone and sought an appointment to meet him. The chief adviser gave the commission an afternoon appointment to meet him in his office.
The full panel of the EC including two other election commissioners Muhammed Sohul Hussain and Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain will also sit in a meeting this morning to discuss holding the polls to the city corporations of Dhaka. Rajshahi, Khulna. Sylhet and Bansal, and also to discuss its draft protocol for appointing election commissioners, sources said.
Asked whether the EC will discuss holding of polls to city corporations. CEC Huda said in fact there is no fixed agenda for the meeting where everything might be discussed.
"We will inform the chief adviser about the progress in the last one year of the preparations for holding
the parliamentary election," Huda, who was appointed as the CEC on February 4 last year, told The Daily Star last evening.
He said they will meet the president and the chief adviser from time to time to apprise them of the progress of EC's work.
"We will also apprise the chief adviser about the difficulties we are facing in carrying out our duties," Huda said.
Replying to a query, the CEC said they might also discuss with the chief adviser their proposals drafted for setting up some criteria for appointing election commissioners.
Besides, the EC wall discuss the draft ordinance which was recently approved by the cabinet to free the EC Secretariat from the control of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
Tenure of three city corporations of Dhaka, Rajshahi and Khulna expired in May last year while the tenure of the city corporations of Barisal and Sylhet expired in last November and December respectively. According to election laws, polls to the five city corporations are supposed to be held within 180 days prior to the expiration of their tenure.
But due to the state of emergency and for a lack of a fair voter list, the polls to the city corporations could not be held. The EC, which began the field level task of preparing a voter list with photographs in August last year from Rajshai City Corporation area, has almost completed the job in five of the six city corporation areas.
The commission will now publish a draft voter list prepared for the city corporation areas for scrutiny, which will then be finalised.
If the polls to the city corporations are held in April, those will be the first ever polls held in the last one year since the declaration of the state of emergency on January 11,2007.
Besides, the EC has plans to hold the due polls to some municipalities also starting from April.