Reserved Seats for Women
Elections to 1,600 posts in UZs this year likely
Polls to some 1,600 posts reserved for women in the upazila parishads may be held anytime this year, completing formation of the local government bodies more than three years after the system was restored.
The Election Commission held polls to the posts of chairmen and vice-chairmen for 481 upazila parishads on January 22, 2009. But it could not hold the polls to the reserved seats for various reasons including the one that there was no authority to fix the schedule.
The government itself had retained the authority to fix the timetable since February 2009 but did not make any move. Even the government did not frame rules for the election.
At the end of November last year, the government returned the authority to the EC by amending the Upazila Parishad Act.
In exercise of the authority, sources in the EC Secretariat say the commission has recently drafted rules for conducting polls to the upazila parishads.
"The Election Commission has already approved the rules for conducting the upazila parishad elections. It will be sent to the law ministry soon for vetting," a senior EC official told The Daily Star wishing not to be named.
"Once it is finalised, we will ask the district-level officials to prepare the voter list for holding polls to the reserved seats for women," the official added.
The women representatives elected to reserved seats in union parishads and municipalities are entitled to contest the polls to the reserved seats in the upazila parishads.
As per the Act, an upazila parishad consists of a chairman and two vice-chairmen, including a woman, while municipality mayors and union parishad chairmen under the upazilas become ex-officio members and members of the reserved seats.
As per the existing law, the number of reserved seats for women in upazila parishads is one-third of all union parishads and municipalities taken together.
There are over 4,500 union parishads and 333 municipalities. So the number of the reserved posts for women in 481 upazila parishads would be around 1,600. If polls to the reserved seats are held, it would have elected women representatives to the upazila parishads for less than two years.
The military-backed caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed in 2008 introduced the provision of reserved seats in its efforts to empower women politically by ensuring their participation in the local government bodies.
Immediately after the upazila polls, the EC could not move for holding the elections as the specified tenure of women representatives elected to reserved seats in union and municipalities who are eligible for polls to the reserved seats in upazila had expired, said an EC official.
Tenure of the union parishads and municipalities expired in early 2008 and mid-2009. Polls to the union parishads and municipalities were held in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
But even after that the EC could not move to hold polls to the reserved seats as it did not have the authority to fix the timetable. The government did not ratify the Upazila Parishad Ordinance promulgated by the past caretaker government under which the January 22 polls were held. The ordinance empowered the EC to fix the timetable for the upazila polls.
The government in February 2009 reintroduced the Upazila Parishad Act of 1998 that empowered the government to fix the polls schedule.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments