Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda yesterday said elections to municipalities will be held in five phases, starting in December.

Electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used in all the polls, he said after an Election Commission meeting held at its office in the capital.

"The elections will be completed by May next year," he added.

In the first phase, 20-25 municipalities, whose tenure will expire between January and the first week of February, will go to polls, he said.

According to electoral law, elections to the municipalities will be held within 90 days before the term of the municipality expires.

Election Commissioner Rafiqul Islam said the municipality term begins from its first meeting.

The terms will expire at different times as the first meetings were held at different times. "That's why, elections to all municipalities cannot be held simultaneously," he added.

EC sources said according to Local Government Division, there are 329 municipalities in Bangladesh. Of them, tenure of 235 will expire by March 2020 and of another 56 in April.

CEC Nurul Huda said they have prepared a draft of Bangla translation of the Representation of the People Order, 1972. "We are doing the work (translation) some 47/48 years after it was formulated," he added.

At first EC thought about making a new law scrapping the 1972 RPO. But they refrained from doing so as the government has decided not to formulate new laws scrapping ones either enacted or promulgated from January 1, 1972 to August 5, 1975 during the tenure of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

"The government decided that those laws and ordinances would only be amended. So we will make amendment. But there will be no major changes in RPO," he added.