Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin says his commission is 'completely prepared' for a nationwide general election, reports bdnews24.com.
The Election Commission is, however, not considering any local elections ahead of the national parliamentary polls.
Speaking to the media at the EC headquarters on Tuesday, the CEC said: "We are ready as per the announcement made by the chief advisor. Whenever he wants, we are fully prepared. Preparations for the national election are underway at full speed. We have no considerations about holding local elections at the moment."
In his address to the nation on Victory Day, Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus outlined a possible timeframe for the next general election.
He suggested that the 13th national parliamentary election could be held by the end of 2025 or in the first half of 2026 based on the consensus of the political parties.
Asked about the remarks, Nasir said: "We started working on the national election from the first day. We have all the preparations needed for the general election. We are fully ready to hold the election as per the time frame indicated by the honourable chief advisor."
When asked about local government elections, he said, "The reference to the elections made by the chief advisor were regarding the national parliamentary election. He did not say anything about local government polls. Our stakeholders and political parties have also talked about parliamentary elections.
They talked about handing over power from the interim government to an elected government. So, we are thinking about parliamentary elections."
In response to a question about redrawing parliamentary constituencies, he said: "The re-demarcation of constituencies will be based on fairness. If there are any irregularities in the demarcation of the past boundaries, if any boundaries have been re-demarcated intentionally to make a candidate win or lose, we will definitely look into that."
"The elections will not be on the 2001 boundaries but on the current ones - that is not the issue. We will do it based on fairness."
Asked whether a new voter list is being prepared, the CEC said: "After two months, we will have a new final voters' list. After that, we will go door to door to collect information. Many have died, and many have been excluded. Many have become foreign voters. There are also duplicates. We are getting such information. We will revise the list after verifying it. The election will be held using the revised list."
When asked whether the commission would announce any roadmap for the elections, he said: "The chief advisor has announced a roadmap. We will move forward according to that. We are not thinking of publicly announcing a roadmap. However, we will be working on our own action plan."
