The Election Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, will meet on Sunday (Dec 7) to review overall preparations and finalise the date for announcing the schedule for the upcoming national election and referendum, both slated for February 2026.
The Commission has finished all necessary preparations to announce the election schedule and the date for the election schedule is most likely to be finalised in Sunday’s meeting, said EC officials.
“We’ve completed 100 percent preparations and the date for the election schedule has not finalised yet,” EC’s senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed told a training workshop at the Electoral Training Institute (ETI) in the city’s Agargaon area.
He, however, trashed news published by several media outlets that disclosed the specific dates for schedule and election saying that the dates have not been fixed yet.
Read more: BNP places 3 fresh proposals before EC, raises no objection to election schedule
Quoting the CEC, he said the election schedule will be declared in the second week of December.
The Secretary said the white ballot paper would be used for the general election, while the pink ballot papers would be for the referendum.
Later talking to UNB, the Secretary said they reviewed pre-schedule preparation in a meeting on Saturday as well.
Replying to a question if the polls schedule date to be decided on Sunday’s meeting, he said, “It’s up to the commission and it may finalise the date tomorrow (Subnday).”
About the preparation regarding amendment to electoral laws, he said the amendment to Representation of the People Order has already been approved by the government (the Council of Advisers), while the revised election code of conduct and election conducting rules are in the Law Ministry for vetting. The gazettes of these laws will be published within a couple of days, he added.
According to the EC officials, there will be nine agenda for Sunday's meeting. The agenda includes the overall preparation for arrangement of the 13th parliamentary election and referendum, pre- and post-schedule activities, coordination with field-level administration, registration of political parties and reviewing National Identity Card (NID) correction application system and finalisation of SOP in this regard.
Read more: BD Polls: EC rejects proposal to increase polling centres, cites voting time
Since this time the national election and referendum on July National Charter (reform charter) will be held simultaneously in a single day, the EC considers setting up two marking (secret stamping corners) places in each booth of the polling stations if there is enough space, while increasing the number of booths in other polling stations.
But the Commission has yet to assess how many additional polling booths will be installed and how many polling booths will have two marking places.
In this regard, the EC Secretary said the decision over installation of additional booths and two marking places in a booth could be taken later even after the announcement of the election schedule.
Besides, the Commission considers extending the eight-hour balloting period by one hour (from 7:30am to 4:30pm) as every voter will need to cast two votes –one for an MP candidate and another for the referendum.
Read more: Bangladesh Polls: EC considers picking a symbolic number of returning officers from its own staff
The Election Commission on October 27 released the list of 42,761 polling stations throughout the country for the 13th parliamentary election, raising the number by around 611 from what was in the 2024 national election.