BANGLADESH

The search committee has invited the political parties that had dialogues with the president to put up their nominees for the chief and members of the new Election Commission.

The move was decided from the maiden meeting of the committee held at the Supreme Court conference room on Wednesday.

Senior information officer of the Cabinet Division Munshi Jalal Uddin in a media statement said each of those political party can propose a maximum of five names with bio-data of the nominees to the Cabinet Division secretary by 3pm on Jan 29.

The meeting, led by chairman Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, an Appellate Division judge, asked the Cabinet Division secretary to send to it names of all his predecessors and retired former principal secretaries to the prime minister.

It also asked the Supreme Court registrar to send in the names of retired district judges.

The meeting also decided that the committee members would collect the names of the persons they deem fit to become election commissioners.

President Zillur Rahman formed the search committee, following a series of dialogues, to reconstitute the Election Commission.

The Cabinet Division published the names of the committee in a gazette on Tuesday. The committee has been given 10 working days to recommend names for the next Election Commission.

Though main opposition BNP took part in the dialogue, it demanded restoration of the caretaker government system, which was scrapped on June 30 last year through the 15 amendment to the constitution, before reconstitution of the electoral commission.

Two other members of the committee, High Court's Justice Md Nuruzzman and Public Service Commission chairman A T Ahmedul Hauqe Chowdhury were present at Wednesday's meeting.