Dhaka, May 1: The Election Commission (EC) of Bangladesh stated on Thursday that it will not consider the recommendation to disqualify individuals and fugitives indicted in the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) from contesting in the upcoming election as ‘immediately implementable’. Without mentioning former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina or her Awami League party, the constitutional body said that it believes that a political consensus is required to determine the eligibility and ineligibility of an individual for election. Last month, the Cabinet Division of Bangladesh forwarded several recommendations of the electoral system reform committee to the EC, marking them as “immediately implementable”. The commission was asked to inform how much time is required to implement them and whether there is financial involvement in it.
The EC, reported Bangladesh’s leading Bengali daily Prothom Alo on Thursday, does not think that all the recommendations listed in the cabinet division letter are immediately implementable barring only those which do not involve political controversy or financial involvement. On Wednesday, the EC sent its opinion to the Cabinet Division on the immediate implementation proposals of the Reform Commission. Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Sanaullah said that the EC is set to recommend a set of electoral reforms to the government that are above political debate and can be implemented without delay, as they do not require political consensus. In March, the EC had expressed its disagreement with the National Consensus Commission on at least 28 recommendations of the Reform Commission, including the recommendation to ‘prevent persons declared as fugitives by the court from becoming candidates’. They said that if this provision is made, it can be used for malicious purposes. (PTI)
Hasina’s expat son decries family’s property seizure
Dhaka, May 1: Deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s expatriate son Sajeeb Wazed Joy has sharply criticised the seizure of property of close family members in Bangladesh saying it was done without any proof of corruption.
His reaction came after a Dhaka court on Wednesday ordered attachment of more property and land owned by five members of the Hasina family.
The former prime minister fled to India on August 5 last year after a massive student-led agitation that toppled her over 15-year-old regime. Three days later, Muhammad Yunus took over as Chief Adviser of the interim government. “The courts in #Bangladesh under the #Yunus’ dictatorship have moved to seize my family’s inherited properties,” Joy said in a post on X hours after Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Md Zakir Hossain issued orders for the seizure. Joy, who lives in the United States and has previously served as an ICT affairs adviser in his mother’s government, particularly scorned the seizure of the Sudha Sadan, “the house built by my father decades ago which was looted and burnt by the terrorists under this (Yunus) regime”. Hasina’s nuclear scientist husband Wazed Miah died a natural death in 2009. Sudha Sadan at Dhaka’s Dhanmondi area came under the court’s seizure order earlier on March 11. (PTI)