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Dhaka: The interim government in emergency-ruled Bangladesh has nodded its assent to an Election Commission (EC) proposal suggesting a series of amendments to election laws that would allow voters to cast "no" votes.
The interim cabinet or advisory council chaired by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmad on Sunday night cleared the draft of the Representation of the People's Order (RPO) Ordinance 2008 that makes the registration of political parties mandatory for contesting elections.
Intra-party democracy
The proposed amendment barred political parties from having front organisations and overseas units. It also tied election eligibility of parties to the exercise of intra-party democracy and made it binding on candidates to submit their election expenditure statements and related bank statements to the EC.
"The ordinance will come back to the cabinet for final approval after being vetted by the law ministry" and President Ijajuddin Ahmad was expected to sign it into law by the end of the month, government spokesman Syed Fahim Munaim told newsmen at the end of a cabinet meeting last night.
The much talked-about amendment comes as part of a massive electoral reforms package promised by the interim administration in the runup to general elections slated to be held in the third week of December as per an election commission roadmap.
The draft law suggested that voters be allowed to cast "no" votes if they did not find any contestant worthy of their votes. It also laid out that election to a constituency be cancelled if "no" votes amounted to 50 per cent or more of the total votes cast, and for a by-election to be held in such an eventuality.
The draft ordinance fixes a new ceiling for election expenditure, allowing a candidate an upper spending limit of 15 lakh Bangladesh taka (Dh82,133) for an electoral campaign. The earlier upper limit was 5 lakh taka.
The draft ordinance also called for the selection of nominees for parliamentary polls by the local units of the parties with the parliamentary boards of the respective parties being allowed to pick the final nominees from amongst the panel submissions.
Criminal record
According to the draft, a person sentenced to a minimum of two years in jail in criminal cases will be ineligible to contest in the national election and those who already served their sentences will have to wait for five years before regaining eligibility.
In an apparent reference to those who collaborated with Pakistani troops during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War, the draft suggested that any person convicted of war crimes by any court, either at home or abroad, would be disqualified from standing for election.
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