The commission has already drafted a separate law ‘Political Party Registration Act, 2020’ in this regard dropping the deadline of raising women representation to at least 33 percent of all committee positions by this year.
The EC has already published the draft law on its website (www.ecs.gov.bd) and also sent its copy to the political parties, said EC’s Joint Secretary in-charge (Public Relations) SM Asaduzzaman.
Now the deadline of 2020 is mentioned in the article 90B of the Representation of the People Order, 1972 (RPO, 1972).
According to the RPO, if any political party desires to be registered, along with fulfilling other conditions and keeping provisions, it shall have to fix the goal of reserving at least 33 percent of all committee positions for women including the central committee and successively achieving this goal by the year 2020.
The commission, headed by ATM Shamsul Huda incorporated the deadline in the RPO during the army-back caretaker government before 9th parliamentary elections.
But now the EC wants to enact a separate law not keeping the provisions and conditions related to registration of political parties in the Article 90A-90I of the RPO 1972.
The new law will be enacted in Bengali, said SM Asaduzzman.
Opinion over the proposed law can be sent to the EC senior secretary through [email protected] by July 7 next, he said.