Next polls under ‘democratic system’: PM

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday told her cabinet colleagues that the next parliamentary polls due in January 2019 would be held under the democratic system as in other democracies in the world. 
She said the non-party caretaker government system was introduced at their demand for free and fair polls and such provision was no longer required, a minister told New Age quoting Hasina as saying in the cabinet meeting at the Cabinet Division. 
Referring to Narayanganj mayoral election, she said that the general elections would also be held in a peaceful manner and all people would turn up enthusiastically to cast vote. 
The Awami League-led government was working to ensure free and fair polls under the Election Commission, Hasina said while chairing the weekly cabinet meeting. 
She said that the election to Narayanganj City Corporation held on December 22 with participation of all political parties was free and fair.
Hasina, also the AL president, raised the issued a day after the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party once again demanded the next general election under a neutral government.
The ruling Awami League-led alliance also said on Sunday that the next elections would be free and fair under a neutral Election Commission to be reconstituted by the president.
President Abdul Hamid has, meanwhile, started talks with the political parties on the reconstitution of the commission as the tenure of the incumbent commission would expire in February 2017.
BNP earlier boycotted the January 5, 2014 general election, which was also boycotted by all opposition parties, demanding the reinstatement of the election-time non-party government system.
Monday’s cabinet meeting endorsed a draft of the Second Amendment to the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement to incorporate Mongolia as a member of the six-member forum that included Bangladesh, India, China, North Korea, Sri Lanka and Laos, cabinet secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said at a briefing after the meeting.

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