Chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday reiterated that the polls would be held sometime between December 2025 and June next year.
鈥榃e want the next polls to be the freest, fair and acceptable one in the history of Bangladesh,鈥� he said while addressed the nation in the evening to convey greetings on the occasion of the Independence Day and the holy Eid-ul-Fitr.
He also called upon the country people to resist the rumour through awareness and greater unity, terming it as the 鈥榤ain instrument鈥� of the defeated forces against the July uprising.
鈥楾he election commission has started taking all-out preparations,鈥� the chief adviser said and hoped that the political parties would begin preparations with great enthusiasm to join the next polls.
Prof Yunus said that the national consensus commission had already started its work, while letters had been sent to 38 political parties with 166 recommendations and full reports from six reform commissions constituted earlier by the interim government.
Meanwhile, he said that the government had already started talks with the political parties over reforms and the political parties had responded very positively to the reform works and are expressing their opinions.
鈥楾he political parties are providing their opinions on reform proposals. It is a matter of happiness for the nation that each political party is giving its opinion in favour of the reform.鈥�
The chief adviser said that a grand festival of spreading rumour through the mass media and social media had been going on since the interim government assumed power. 鈥榃e have to resist rumour with our consciousness and greater unity.鈥�
鈥楻umour is being spread through innovative techniques. One picture is being added to another one, photo cards are being made with one incident and photo with another incident, the social media has gone viral by describing an incident of another country as an incident of the country. It will be more dangerous as the election approaches nearer,鈥� he said.
Yunus said that they had sought cooperation from the United Nations to stop spreading rumour and fake information and its secretary general assured Bangladesh of extending cooperation to the end.
He reminded the nation that the first phase of the July uprising had completed successfully and the second phase had started with completion of the first one.
The July Charter would be prepared on the basis of the issues the political parties would agree on, he added. 鈥極ur responsibility is to present the entire process before the nation in a transparent way and organise the elections after completing the process.鈥�
At the onset of his speech, the chief adviser recalled with deep respect the heroic martyrs of the great Liberation War on the eve of the great Independence Day.
Describing the present era as the era of technology and creativity, the chief adviser said that there were 170 million men and women in the country, of which the youth were the vast majority.
鈥楤angladesh is the eighth largest country in terms of human resources and if these young people get the opportunity to express their creativity at the same time, the country will quickly move to the centre of the world market,鈥� he said.
鈥楢fter cancelling the rule of getting a police report, so far 70,000 new passports, which were stuck waiting for a long time to come from the police report, have been quickly delivered to the applicants,鈥� he informed.
The chief adviser descried boundless corruption as the 鈥榖iggest problem鈥� in Bangladesh as he said that the previous Awami League government had taken the corruption to the top of the world.
鈥楥orruption not only increases costs incredibly but also destroys all the efforts of the government and the people and it makes meaningless all goals, policies, institutional arrangements of the government as well as the responsibilities of its officials,鈥� he said.
鈥業n addition to trying to keep this government鈥檚 tenure corruption-free, we are committed to ensuring that the citizens of the country can be free from government-sponsored corruption in the coming days as well,鈥� he said.
No citizen should have to physically appear in any government office for daily, monthly, or annual routine work with the government, he said, adding as part of the prevention of corruption, it has been decided to introduce e-filing in all government offices.
鈥楬arassment of expatriate Bangladeshis has been reduced through amendments to the Power of Attorney Rules. In light of the amended rules, even if a person of Bangladeshi origin does not have a Bangladeshi passport, he or she can execute a power of attorney from abroad only if he or she has a No Visa Required sticker in his or her passport or a birth certificate or national identity card,鈥� he added.