960416

BD EC plans $5m

draft budget for polls

DHAKA: Bangladesh's Election Commission has prepared a 200-million-taka $5 million draft budget to pay for general elections to the country's seventh parliament, sources said on Tuesday.

The commission sources said the draft had been sent to the finance ministry for approval and it was double that spent for February's opposition-boycotted polls for the sixth parliament.

The budget will cover, among other things, the printing of ballot papers and other documents, allowances for officials and the repair or purchase of new ballot boxes.

The commission has yet to announce the date of polls to the 300-seat national parliament but the constitution stipulates they must be held before June 28.

Caretaker administration chief, Muhammad Habibur Rahman, has said the polls will be free, fair and held on schedule.

He has almost finished a reshuffle of the Commission's key posts.

Rahman has ordered an anti-illegal weapons drive and a reshuffle in the civil administration and police service, a major demand of the political groups that forced former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to resign.

They alleged that Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) "politicized" the police and administration by giving key posts to trusted officials.

Abdus Salam Talukder, BNP's secretary general, in a statement said he was concerned about the reshuffle because recently posted officials would find it difficult to carry out their duties properly just ahead of polls.

He added that although some changes could be made to organize free elections, a mass reshuffle would make the administration "unstable and weak."

Talukder again criticised Rahman for not taking action against civil servants who revolted against Zia's government, and he called on the caretaker administration to revise the order for the mass reshuffle of officials.

Meanwhile, Zia and her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed, were respectively scheduled to address a major BNP rally and press conference later Tuesday.-AFP