Awami League has 260 candidates, BNP fields 257

Bangladesh is going to polls on Dec 30, 2018 to elect the members of parliament.

Bangladesh has finally entered the voting phase of the 11th parliamentary election amid political clashes and continued disagreements over ‘level playing field’ by the contesting parties.

On Sunday, around 104 million voters are expected to give their verdict, and the chosen party will take the reins of Bangladesh for the next five years.

The Election Commission has all the registered political parties contesting in the 11th parliamentary election this time. In the previous election, held five years ago amongst widespread and often deadly violence, most of the registered parties chose to stay away from the crucial ballot.

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda hopes all the contesting parties will co-operate for a peaceful and fair election and all anxieties will be set aside for a festive vote.

 To ensure law and order, 700,000 security personnel, 700,000 election officials and a good number of journalists and observers, making up a total of 1.5 million, are engaged in electoral work, according to Election Commission Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed.

The election schedule, announced on Nov 8 by CEC Nurul Huda, was revised on Nov 12.

The candidates started electioneering after the allotment of the symbols on Dec 10. All campaigning was officially ended on Friday 8am, as decided by the EC.

11TH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

>> Time: The voting will start at 8am and run until 4pm on Sunday.

>> Seat: Due to the death of a candidate, the election will be contested in 299 seats out of 300. The EC has re-scheduled the voting date of the remaining Gaibandha-3 constituency to Jan 27.

>> Voter: Among 103,826,823 voters, 52,371,620 are men and 51,455,203 women.

>> Voting centres and polling stations: Voting will be conducted in 205,691 polling stations among 40,051 voting centres.

>> How voting will be conducted: Six constituencies - Dhaka-6, Dhaka-13, Chattogram -9, Rangpur-3, Khulna-2 and Satkhira-2 - will make use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The remaining 293 seats will have the traditional method of vote casting using ballot paper.

>> Results Announcement: After counting is finished, the presiding officers in each voting centre will send a written copy of the results to the returning officers. The returning officers will then count the total number of votes and send the results to the EC. The official result of the election will be announced in a ceremony from a special stage in the fountain premises of the election building in Dhaka.

Source: bdnews24