No place for criminals in parliament: Badiul

Staff Reporter :

Badiul Alam Majumdar, the head of the Electoral Reform Commission, has said, recommendations have been made to ensure that individuals involved in corruption, crimes against humanity, or extrajudicial killings are barred from participating in elections.

He made these remarks as the chief guest at a seminar held at the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) at Kotbari in Cumilla on Saturday. The seminar, titled “Evaluation and Approval of the Working Paper on AHK Satellite City,” was organised by an organization called “Cumilla Bachao Mancha”.

The keynote speech was delivered by Monirul Haque Chowdhury, a former MP and a valiant freedom fighter from Cumilla.

Badiul Alam Majumdar emphasised the need to cleanse the political landscape of wrongdoers, saying, “We must rid our political arena of miscreants to ensure that dictators and fascists cannot return to parliament. Our parliamentary building is a magnificent structure, and it must not host disgraceful individuals again.”

“During the student-people’s uprising, around 2,000 lives were lost, 25,000 to 30,000 people were injured, and many lost their eyesight or became disabled. We must ensure that their sacrifices do not go in vain. To this end, our reform commission has submitted about 150 recommendations to the Interim government,” he said.

Speaking about the recommendations, Majumdar said, “Over three and a half months, eight members of the Electoral Reform Commission reviewed all laws and regulations related to the electoral system.

Following this extensive process, we made approximately 150 recommendations to strengthen the electoral system. One of these recommendations concerned the National ID (NID). The law transferring NID control to the Ministry of Home Affairs has already been repealed, and control has been restored to the Election Commission.

He, however, said “We proposed that the NID system should eventually be managed by an independent authority due to its critical and wide-ranging functions.”

He further added, “We proposed several eligibility and disqualification criteria for election candidates. Among them, we emphasised that individuals involved in corruption, crimes against humanity, or extrajudicial killings should not be allowed to contest elections.”

Majumdar highlighted the necessity of clean political parties, saying, “We have proposed reforms for political parties as well. If political parties are not democratic, transparent, and welfare-oriented, democracy cannot be established in the state.

We also recommended introducing a ‘No Vote’ option. The last three elections were disgraceful, and we suggested forming a special commission to investigate and prosecute those involved in fraud during these elections.”

“In a democratic state, no one is above accountability, which is why we recommended that the Election Commission should be accountable to a parliamentary special committee.

If the Election Commission commits any misconduct or violates the constitution, the parliamentary committee should investigate and report to the President. Additionally, the Election Commission must certify whether an election was free and fair after it concludes,” he added.

Recommendations on Local Government and the Presidency
Regarding local government elections, Majumdar stated, “We recommended making local government elections non-partisan and empowering local governments further.

We also proposed allocating 30% of the national budget to local governments as they work directly at the grassroots level. Furthermore, we suggested making the position of President non-partisan and expanding the scope of the presidential election.

This could involve the participation of local government representatives alongside members of parliament in the election process.”