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Four to find right persons for EC

Search committee formed; BNP rejects move, CEC welcomes

Staff Correspondent
The government yesterday formed a four-member search committee to recommend names to the president for appointment as election commissioners.
The committee will be headed by an Appellate Division judge and will also comprise a High Court judge, the comptroller and auditor general and the chairman of the Public Service Commission.
The Cabinet Division on Saturday issued a circular to that effect, Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan toldThe Daily Star yesterday.
The chief justice will nominate the two
judges from the Appellate Division and the HC. The law ministry has already sent a letter to the chief justice's office, requesting necessary measures, ministry sources said.
This is for the first time that a search committee has been formed to appoint a chief election commissioner and other election commissioners. The tenure of the present commissioners will expire in midFebruary.
The search committee will recommend the names to President Zillur Rahman within 10 working days of its formation, said the Cabinet Division circular. The presence of at least two members will be required to make a quorum at a committee meeting.
“The committee will recommend two names against the vacant post of the chief election commissioner and two for each of the election commissioners in line with the majority view at its meeting,” the circular added.
In case of a tie, the committee chief will cast the deciding vote.
The Cabinet Division will provide secretarial assistance for the search committee.
In light of the outcome of his talks with 24 political parties, the president on January 12 sent a letter to the government, proposing legislation to form a search panel to set up a new election commission.
The president also mentioned that if enacting a law was not possible for time constraints, the government can form a search committee through a gazette notification, said a Bangabhaban source.
The Workers Party and Jatiya Party—two major components of the ruling Awami League-led grand alliance — yesterday said it would have been better if the government had enacted a law to form the search committee.
Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon and JP Secretary General Ruhul Amin Hawlader, however, welcomed the move and said no government in the past had taken such an initiative.
Chief Election Commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda also welcomed the government
decision. He, however, said passing a law to regulate the appointments would be well worthit.
BNP REJECTS
Meanwhile, the main opposition BNP has rejected the formation of the search committee, saying it will not accept anything until the caretaker government system is restored.
Talking to The Daily Star last night, the party's acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the government move was nothing but a ploy to bypass the people's demand for a restoration of the caretakersystem.
Earlier, on January 16, the BNP rejected the president's proposal for forming a search committee.