Party registration raises further questions on EC role

It was with quite some fanfare that the election commission under Kazi Habibul Awal invited applications from new political parties to be registered. And 93 parties applied. But at the end of the day, only two managed to qualify for registration.

The two parties that won this rare distinction were Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Andolan (BNA) and Bangladesh Supreme Party (BSP). They may not have any qualifications whatsoever, other than a similarity in name with BNP. Earlier two other parties had been given EC registration. Their qualification was that the leaders were in BNP in the past. It seems that the game is in the name.

There are three conditions to be fulfilled for a political party to gain registration. The first two do not apply to the new parties. The third one is for the party to have a central committee, a central office and offices in one third of the districts and at least 100 upazilas or metropolitan thanas, and at least 200 members as registered voters.

According to the election commission these two parties fulfilled all these conditions and so were granted registration. The remaining parties did not meet the requirements and so were not granted registration. How believable is this? Parties which regularly hold programmes and are active in the field, did not meet the conditions. Yet the parties that have no activities, have fulfilled the conditions!

An election commissioner said, when granting registration, it is not seen if the party has activities or not, It is seen whether it has offices and committees as laid down in the conditions. They supposedly even carried out an inspection to verify the information given by the parties.

According to Prothom Alo investigations, the two parties cannot receive registration. Their offices have been set up temporarily, some rented by Awami League leaders and some by persons of a particular agency. And those in their committees are also of the ruling party or Jatiya Party.

Ten political parties who had applied for registration, held a press conference, alleging that the EC granted those two parties registration at the directives of the government and did not register the parties who are active in street movements and struggles.

The allegations of the political parties and the results of Prothom Alo’s investigations are serious. The EC should make public all the information of the parties given registration and of the parties that were not given registration. If they fail to do so, the people will grow further doubt and suspicion in EC’s activities. They will not be able to hold a fair election. If they cannot even carry out registration properly, questions arise as to whether they even have the moral right to remain a constitutional institution.

Also, it is almost impossible for a new party to meet the conditions that have been laid down for registration. Again, many of the old parties are enjoying their registration, despite being more or less non-functioning. Such discrimination is not warranted. Even if it means relaxing the conditions to an extent, let steps be taken to grant the active new parties registration.