‘General polls priority, no plans yet for local polls’

Staff Reporter :

Election Commissioner (EC)Abdur Rahman el Masud has again assured that the commission is prerogative to holding parliamentary polls by December then local body polls.

He said Election Commission is not considering local government elections at this moment.

The commissioner made the statement while speaking to
journalists after inspecting the Dhamrai Upazila Election Office on Thursday morning.

Masud said: “You have already heard multiple times that the chief adviser and all officials have confirmed the parliamentary election will take place by December.

Therefore, our primary focus is on the parliamentary election, and we are not currently thinking about local elections.”

Before addressing the media, the upazila administration honoured the commissioner with a guard of honour on the upazila parishad premises.

Regarding local elections, Masud explained that although reforms are underway, the government has not issued any directives or requests for conducting local elections.

He noted that these elections take place in multiple phases, spanning almost a year.

Conducting local elections now would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to hold the parliamentary election in December or January, he added.

“Our main goal is to ensure the parliamentary election takes place. We are currently working on updating the voter list, which will be finalized by June.

If we are to hold the election in December, the election schedule must be announced by October or November. Given these priorities, organizing local elections at this time does not seem feasible,” Masud said.

Addressing concerns about law and order, he expressed optimism, saying: “We hope law and order is improving day by day. We discussed this matter with local authorities, and they confirmed the situation is getting better. We are hopeful that conditions will fully stabilize.”