The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The enactment of a law to free the Election Commission from the Government control is being delayed due to bureaucratic tangle.

Disclosing this yesterday, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr ATM Shamsul Huda said many of the political parties do not practise democracy although claimed themselves as the champions of the pluralist system.

"Many of the political parties, including BNP, which lack practise of democracy within the organisation, cannot register with the Election Commission unless they amend their existing party constitutions," he told journalists after a dialogue with the Workers' Party on electoral reform at the Election Commission (EC) Secretariat.

Turning to the BNP, the CEC said, "I, personally, examined the BNP constitution closely. It will also have to amend its constitution. Otherwise, this party cannot get registered with the Election Commission." He said, "It is not fair to 'shout' for democracy when they (political leaders) themselves do not practise it within the party forum."

"There are many other political parties like that. If they come to us without amending their Constitution, we will simply say sorry to them," Dr Shamsul Huda said, asserting, " political parties, who do not practise democracy within party forum, will also do not get registration unless their constitutions were democratised through amendment."

Expressing the same sentiment, Workers' Party President Rashed Khan Menon said, "We also think so. This is not fair to talk about democracy unless they themselves practise it within the party."

"The parties which did not practise democracy within will have to change their existing party constitutions," he advised.

According to the polls roadmap declared by the EC for holding the stalled general elections, the registration of the political parties would be completed by June next year.

Menon, who was leading a 10-member party delegation to the talks, demanded of the EC not to resister Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party for their anti-independence role during the Liberation War.

He said his party would not take part in the EC's proposed all-party meeting if the Jamaat-e-Islami was invited to it.

Election Commissioners Mohammad Sohul Hossain and Brig Gen (Retd) Sakhawat Hossain were present at the dialogue, which was attended, among others, by Workers Party leaders, by Bimal Biswas, Haider Akbar Khan Rano and Fazle Hossain Badsha.