Bangladeshi authorities decided to postpone the date of the general election by a week, shifting it to December 30, Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh Nurul Huda said on Monday.
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2018) Bangladeshi authorities decided to postpone the date of the general election by a week, shifting it to December 30, Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh Nurul Huda said on Monday."Several political parties requested to change the date of the general election to December 30, instead of initially scheduled date December 23," Huda said at the inaugural ceremony of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) exhibition in Dhaka, as quoted by the BSS news agency.
He also added that the deadline for registration of candidates had been extended to November 28.
About 40,000 polling stations will be opened throughout the country on Election Day and more than 600,000 police officers will be engaged in ensuring security during the vote, according to the CEC representative. The Ministry of Defense of Bangladesh has already confirmed its readiness to strengthen civilian law enforcement agencies by involving ground forces.
It will be the country's 11th national election since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Nearly 104.2 million people are registered as voters now. Voters will choose 300 representatives for the parliament.
The parliament of Bangladesh is a unicameral legislature consisting of 350 members, among which 300 seats elected in general elections and 50 seats reserved for women and distributed to political parties by proportional representation. The Awami League Party is the current ruling party with the majority of seats in parliament led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Earlier on Sunday, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the last election in 2014, together with other opposition parties, confirmed its participation in the upcoming election.
