CEC urges parties to uphold code of conduct

He made the call while presiding over the Election Commission's dialogue with representatives of registered political parties ahead of the 13th National Parliament elections.

The dialogue was held at the seminar room of the Election Commission building at Agargaon.

The CEC said, “Your role is very important for us, and that too in every step of voting. We have seen two or three such elections in the past during the caretaker period, in which the parties have played a major role in adhering to the code of conduct to make the elections fair.”

“Every political party and its elected representatives can play a greater role than law enforcers in ensuring compliance with the electoral code of conduct. We therefore hope you will fulfil your responsibilities,” he said.

The CEC said, the responsibility to deliver a fair and acceptable election rests not only with the Election Commission, but all of you who are equally committed to the nation. Throughout our discussions, no political party has claimed otherwise; each has affirmed its desire for a beautiful and credible election.

He also said, this is very natural, because we believe that you do politics for the country, think about the country, and wish the country well, so we have also promised the nation, our honorable chief advisor had also did that to conduct a credible election.

The Chief Election Commissioner said, when we drafted this code of conduct, we included many recommendations of the Electoral Reforms and National Consensus Commission here. Then we asked for the people's opinions on this draft on our website. Different political parties gave their opinions in writing, and various other organizations also gave their opinions in writing. We finalized it after reviewing everyone's opinions.

However, he said that preparing the code of conduct is not a big task, but compliance with the code of conduct is important. 

“We expect our political parties to play the role that we expect from them in complying with this code of conduct,” he said.

He said, We all know that the voters of our country have gone through an adversity while exercising their votes in the last ten to fifteen years. National leaders who have direct relations with the grassroots people, they can easily influence them t come to vote centres. 

“Motivate the people to give vote. We want to bring everyone to the polling station, and you, the political entities are capable to do this,” he said.

Election Commissioners - Brigadier General Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah (Retd), Abdur Rahmanel Machud, Tahmida Ahmed, Md Anwarul Islam Sarkar and Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed were present.

The political parties participating in today's discussion were- Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Minority Janata Party-BMJP, Insaniat Biplob, Bangladesh, Jatiya Nagorik Party-NCP, Gana Samhati Andolan, Jatiyatabadi Ganatantrik Andolan-NDM and Bangladesh Labor Party, reports BSS. 

The Election Commission is scheduled to hold dialogue with the representatives of six more political parties later today. The parties are- Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP, Bangladesh Jatiya Party-BJP, Gano Adhikar Parishad (GOP), Nagorik Oikya, Bangladesh Republican Party (BRP) and Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal-BDS-Marxbaadi.