Election Commission didn’t dig its own grave: CEC

Staff Reporter :
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal yesterday said the Representation of the People Order (RPO) Amendment Bill 2023 – have not been reduced the powers of the Election Commission(EC) rather increased.

He made this claim during a press briefing at Nirbachan Bhaban in the capital’s Agargaon on Monday.

The CEC convened the press conference to clarify the Representation of the People Order (RPO) Amendment Bill, 2023.

CEC highlighted the commission’s current position, after the RPO amendment was published in the form of gazette on yesterday expressed, “the power of the Election Commission has increased and consolidated.”

Praising the government’s effort in amending RPO, the CEC said the government has amended the law to regulate elections.

“As I said earlier, it was not done by the government. The government has shown us respect… they took our proposed amendments to the parliament and passed them.”

Calling the report of a newspaper denoting that the Election Commission has proposed to “reduce its own power” absolutely absurd, the CEC said the commission has never sent a proposal to reduce its powers and it can’t do that either.

“The Election Commission may make mistakes but it didn’t dig its own grave,” he expressed.

Kazi Habibul Awal also said that the commission can cancel the candidature due to existing provisions, he said, adding, if there are irregularities, before the election, EC has provisions to investigate.

There is a clear provision to cancel the candidature of the person who has committed irregularities after investigation.

“If we can determine the responsibility of who committed the irregularities, then we can cancel his candidature and continue the election,” he added.

Earlier, the ‘Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2023’ was passed in the parliament on Tuesday with the key amendment authorizing the Election Commission to postpone or cancel the results or voting of one or more than one polling stations in any number of constituencies on polling day, but not the entire election to a constituency.

The Law Minister moved the bill in the parliament, which was passed by voice vote. Through this, amendments were brought to the Representation of the People Order, or RPO – the law that governs elections in Bangladesh.

But there is no provision of cancelling the entire election to a constituency in the proposed law, as happened during the Gaibandha-5 by-election last October.