Chief election commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin on Saturday said that time would tell whether Awami League would be able to participate in the next election or not.
鈥極ur job is to organise a fair election among the political parties that are registered before we announce the schedule. Let the time to come, you will see that who remain registered. We will hold the election among them. Wait, we are also waiting,鈥� he commented.
The CEC made the remarks responding to journalists鈥� queries before addressing as the chief guest an exchange-of-views meeting with the election officers of Sylhet on the occasion of updating the voter list and the 13th national parliament election.
The Sylhet Regional Election Office arranged the programme at the Sylhet Circuit House in the morning.
AMM Nasir said that the election commission continued its work keeping in mind the chief adviser鈥檚 statement regarding the timeframe of the national election given during his December 16 address.
鈥榃e are working towards the goal that we can hold elections as per his (chief adviser) statement,鈥� he said.
Responding to another query, the CEC said that the forthcoming national elections would not be held using the electronic voting machines.
鈥榃e have no plan to hold the elections through the EVMs. We have yet to receive the report of the Electoral Reforms Commission. The next decision will be taken after receiving the report,鈥� he said, adding that this time the expatriates also would be able to exercise their voting right.
The chief election commissioner also talked about the local government election process.
鈥業 see in the newspapers, many people recommended holding all local government elections on the same day. We have studied the matter and found that it is not possible at all. This is not an implementable suggestion,鈥� he commented.聽
He said that local government elections meant elections at five levels鈥�12 city corporations, 330 municipalities, 61 districts excluding those three of the Hill Tract, 495 upazilas and 4,595 union parishads.
鈥楢rranging all on a day is not implementable at all,鈥� he said.
Sylhet regional election officer Md Nurul Alam presided over the programme.