Election Commission formed with ex-secy Nasir as CEC

Now the process of fresh polls in the post-uprising Bangladesh gets visible as the interim government Thursday formed a five-member new election commission with retired secretary AMM Nasir Uddin as its chief.

The newly appointed Chief Election Commissioner expressed his commission's resolve to present the nation with free, fair and credible polls.

"Inshallah, we will do all we can to hold free, fair and credible elections. As we are receiving this responsibility, we have to do our utmost to fulfill it, with the cooperation of all," Mr Nasir Uddin told the media immediate after his appointment as the EC chief.

The newly appointed election commissioners are former additional secretary Md Anwarul Islam Sarkar, retired district and sessions judge Abdur Rahmanel Masud, joint secretary (retired) Begum Tahmida Ahmad and Brigadier-General (Retd) Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah.

The Cabinet Division issued separate gazette notifications on the day to this end, with "immediate effect", thus setting at rest wild guess over EC formation, necessitated by the fall of the past government and the dissolution of parliament. President Mohammed Shahabuddin made the appointments under his constitutional authority.

The new EC has been constituted on the basis of the recommendation of a six-member search committee.

The government formed the search committee led by Appellate Division Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury on October 29 in accordance with the Clause-3 of "The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment Act, 2022".

The search panel recommended the names of qualified individuals for the positions of the CEC and other commissioners.

Nasir, the 14th chief election commissioner, is a member of the 1979 batch of the BCS. He completed his studies in Economics from Chittagong University before being appointed as a teacher. In 2004, he served as the information secretary. He has also held the posts of fuel secretary, a member of the Planning Commission, and the health secretary.

The interim government first appointed him as the chief of the Local Government Reform Commission. Now he is taking the reins of the country's election regulator.

In his immediate response to the appointment, Nasir told bdnews24.com:

"Inshallah, we will do all that we can to hold free, fair and credible elections. As we are receiving this responsibility we have to do our utmost to fulfil it, with the cooperation of all."