The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

The government and the Election Commission (EC) have taken allout measures for holding the December 29 Jatiya Sangsad (JS) election in a free, fair and credible manner, and fixed the polling time from 8 am to 4 pm.

Official sources said today the government has declared the election day a public holiday. Moreover, all post offices across the country will remain open for 24 hours on the day to facilitate delivery of postal ballots.

The EC has, meanwhile, appointed 286 judicial magistrates to try people guilty of electoral offences during the polling period. As per the criminal code, the judicial magistrates can give imprisonment to offenders from two to seven years.

Moreover, 319 executive magistrates will carry out election duties with law-enforcers. The EC has also set up a coordination cell for the first time to monitor the law and order situation.

The cell will keep the EC informed of the law and order situation allover the country on the election day and on the following day.

The EC has taken steps this year to hang election results of every polling centre on the spot after counting the votes. After counting all the votes of a particular constituency, the EC will announce the election results of that constituency from its premises in the city.

In the Noakhali-9 constituency, the polling will take place on January 12, 2009, following the death of Ganatantri Party chairman and Awami League-led grand alliance nominee Nurul Islam.

In the remaining 299 constituencies in the country, a total of 1,552 candidates are taking part in the parliamentary election.

The EC statistics said a total of 8,10,58,698 voters have been registered this time with photo identity cards. The number of new voters stands at 31 percent of the total voters. The female voters are higher at 4,12,29,149 against 3,98,22,449 males this year.

The voters will cast their votes at 35,216 polling centres where a total of 1,77,107 polling booths will be set up.

A total of 5,66,537 election officers will run the polling. The number of presiding officers is 35,216, assistant presiding officers 1,77,107 and polling officers 3,45,214.

Each polling centre will facilitate 2,302 voters while each booth will serve 458 voters on an average, the official figures said.