No voter list update with photos in 3yrs

Election Commissioner Abdul Mobarak yesterday accused the past Election Commission (EC) led by ATM Shamsul Huda of violating laws by not updating the voter list in the last three years.
Talking to reporters at his EC Secretariat office, he also questioned the justification of the salaries the former chief election commissioner and his two colleagues took in the three years without updating the electoral roll.
Mobarak, who was appointed election commissioner at the newly formed EC led by Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed early last month, also expressed doubts over beginning an updating of the voter list from March 10 in line with the past commission's decision.
"The task [of updating the voter list] may be legally questioned if it begins this way," he said. "They did not update the voter list in the last three years. How did their salaries get justified? But now they are talking much on television talk shows."
Mobarak said the electoral law says the voter list will be updated in January, and asked why it did not start in time.
Asked if the job of updating the voter list will begin on March 10, he said: "Should we use snow powder as the past commission used it? Our question is: why did they not do the task in the last three years?"
He said the incumbent EC would decide about it in next two to three days.
According to the electoral roll law, the voter list is supposed to be updated every year from January 2 to January 31.
The past EC could not update the voter list in January 2009 due to holding upazila parishad elections countrywide the same month.
Later it updated the voter list between May 2009 and January 2010.
The past EC could not also update the voter list in 2011 due to holding polls to municipalities and union parishads countrywide from January.
Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) Zabed Ali the same day said the EC had nothing to do with the ongoing campaign launched by the ruling Awami League-led alliance and other aspirants to mayoral posts to the bifurcated Dhaka City Corporation.
Talking to reporters at this office, he said the EC supervises all activities related to polls from the announcement of the schedule to the publication of results in the official gazette.
"So, we don't have anything to do before the announcement of the election schedule. We will discharge our duties as per the Constitution. We will not find any ways on our own [to take steps against the ongoing campaign] and will not take any trouble," he added.