District council elections likely on Dec 28

The Election Commission (EC) is going to announce in mid-November the schedule for the first-ever elections to the district councils likely to be held on December 28.

“We have already started taking preparations for holding the elections … We will announce the poll schedule around 40 to 45 days ahead of the voting date,” Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz told reporters yesterday.

On Monday, the LGRD ministry sent a letter to the EC requesting them to hold the district council elections on December 28.

The House on October 6 passed the District Council (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

Talking to the reporters at his office at the EC Secretariat, the commissioner said ministers, MPs and other VIPs would not be allowed to join the campaign like other local government polls.

Candidates would not be allowed to use loudspeakers or hold rallies for electioneering since there are very few voters compared to other local government elections.

According to the laws, only the elected representatives of different local government bodies -- city corporations, upazila parishads and union parishads -- will vote to elect a chairman, 15 general members and five women members in each district council.

In 2000, the Awami League-led government repealed the Zila Parishad Act, 1988 and passed the District Council Act, 2000, with a provision for direct polls. But no elections to the councils had been held so far, allowing bureaucrats to run those bodies.

In December 2011, the AL government appointed 61 administrators, mostly top leaders of the ruling party's district units, to as many district councils.