Women grassroots leaders have not been able to play their due roles in upazila parishad for over a year as polls to around 1,600 reserve seats for women have not been held.
The Election Commission did not hold the elections as the specified tenure of the electorates for the polls had expired, EC officials said. Women representatives elected to reserved seats in union parishads and municipalities are electorates and are entitled to contest the polls to the reserved seats in upazila parishad.
The tenures of union parishads and municipalities expired in early 2008 and mid-2009.
Like other representatives elected to these bodies, women representatives are still holding on to their offices only to keep the continuity until the next elections to the two local government bodies are held.
The upazila parishad elections were held on January 22 last year and a chairman and two vice-chairmen, including a woman, were elected in each upazila. Union parishad chairmen and municipality mayors under upazilas become ex-officio members of the upazila parishads. As per the existing law, the number of reserved seats for women in upazila parishad is one third of the total number of union parishads and municipalities in the upazila.
If the EC had held the polls to reserved women seats in upazila parishads, it would have elected women representatives to the upazila parishad for five years, a senior EC official said.
Thus the EC decided to hold polls to the reserved seats on completion of union parishads and municipality polls, the official added.
The military-backed caretaker government, in its effort to ensure participation of women in local government system, introduced the provision of reserved seats for women in upazila parishad in 2008.
Citing the number of around 4,500 union parishads and 309 municipalities, the EC officials said the number of reserved seats for women in 481 upazila parishads would be around 1,600.
Their election was supposed to be held after the January 22 upazila parishad election.
But it might not be possible to hold the election to reserved seats this year, as possibility of completion of polls to union parishads and municipalities is very low, EC officials said.
They said the formation of upazila parishads cannot be completed until the election to the reserved seats for women is held.
AMENDMENT TO
UPAZILA ACT
Meanwhile, the government is yet to amend the upazila parishad act in line with the EC’s proposals to remove discrepancy between the now defunct upazila parishad ordinance and upazila parishad act regarding qualification and disqualification of aspirants for a post in upazila.
The January 22 upazila parishad election was held under the now defunct ordinance, which ceased to have effect on February 24 last year, as it was not ratified in parliament within the specified timeframe.
The government, however, reintroduced the Upazila Parishad Act 1998 bringing some changes. But the new law did not include some provisions of the upazila parishad ordinance including the provision for submitting affidavits of candidates contesting the polls.
War criminals convicted by a tribunal were also not barred from the upazila elections.
The EC on September 13 last year sent the proposals to the LGRD ministry to this effect.
The EC could not hold by-elections to a number of posts of chairmen that had fallen vacant after the deaths of incumbents, as the law had not been amended removing the discrepancy, EC officials added.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net
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