Staff Correspondent:

The Election Commission (EC) has unveiled its roadmap for the upcoming 13th national election, with a target to hold the polls in the first half of February next year before Ramadan starts.

Briefing the media at the EC headquarters in Dhaka’s Agargaon on Thursday (August 28), EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed said discussions with political parties and other stakeholders will be held by the end of September. “It may take one to one and a half months.”

In response to a question on when the election schedule would be announced, Akhtar said the schedule will be declared 60 days before voting.

Photo: Collected

“The Chief Adviser’s Office has instructed us to hold the election before Ramadan. If I’m not mistaken, Ramadan will begin on 17 or 18 February, though of course it depends on the sighting of the moon.

“From this, you can calculate the probable election date,” he said.

He added that Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus earlier also instructed that the election be held before Ramadan, and the roadmap has been prepared accordingly.

The roadmap received final approval on Wednesday (August 27) at a meeting attended by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, four other election commissioners, and the senior secretary.

The election roadmap is expected to cover key issues, including party registration, constituency delimitation, election observers, reforms to the Representation of the People Order (RPO), issuance of rules and regulations, IT-based voter registration, a postal ballot system for expatriates, and procurement of election equipment.

The practice of announcing a formal election roadmap was first introduced in 2007. On 15 July of that year, the then Election Commission unveiled a comprehensive one-and-a-half-year plan, outlining a timeline for declaring the election schedule and conducting the polls between October and December 2008.

This approach later became widely known as the “roadmap” — a structured list of preparatory tasks.

In a televised address to the nation on 5 August this year, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus announced that the 13th parliamentary election would be held before Ramadan, in February next year. The following day, the Chief Adviser’s Office formally instructed the EC to begin preparations.

The CEC said the election schedule would be announced about two months before polling day, with the commission planning to announce it in the first half of December.