Handover of power to new govt won't not go beyond 17-18 Feb: press secretary

The interim government will hand over power to the elected government as quickly as possible after the election, and it is unlikely to go beyond 17 or 18 February, said chief adviser’s press secretary Shafiqul Alam.

He made the remarks today, Thursday afternoon at a press conference held at the Foreign Service Academy in the capital. Earlier, a meeting of the advisory council was held with Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus in the chair.

Voting in the 13th national parliamentary election will be held on 12 February. A referendum on implementing the July National Charter will also take place on the same day.

The chief adviser’s press secretary said, “The transfer of power will take place at the earliest possible time. If it is seen that within three days the members of parliament have taken their oath, then the leader of the majority party will be invited to take the oath as prime minister. This could happen within three days, on 15 or 16 February. I do not think it will go beyond 17 or 18 February.”

At the briefing, the chief adviser’s deputy press secretary, Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumder, said the handover of responsibilities to the elected representatives would take place as soon as possible after the election. He noted that this had already been communicated the previous day.

Earlier at the Secretariat, law adviser Asif Nazrul spoke to journalists about who could administer the oath to elected members of parliament. He said, “This is a policy-level decision of the government. I cannot give you a final answer at this moment. However, we have two options before us. One is that a person nominated by the president could administer the oath, for example, it could be the chief justice.”

“If that does not happen, then the chief election commissioner would administer the oath. There is one problem in that case, we would have to wait three days. We do not want to wait, rather we want to ensure the oath is administered as quickly as possible after the election,” Asif Nazrul added.