Shawdesh Desk:

Former commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Mohammad Shahabuddin, has been elected Bangladesh’s next president.

Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal , talking to reporters, at the Election Commission announced that the AL nominated presidential candidate Mohammad Shahabuddin was elected unopposed.

He said that the EC announced Shahabuddin elected as only one person submitted nomination paper and his papers were found valid.

The CEC said that they would send papers for publishing gazette in this connection.

Born in 1949 in Pabna, freedom fighter Shahabuddin retired as a district judge in 2006 and served as commissioner of the ACC between 2011 and 2016.

Shahabuddin was handpicked by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was empowered by the AL parliamentary party in a meeting on February 7 to select the party’s candidate for the president post.

The president may hold office for five years from the date of assumption of office.

Md Abdul Hamid, the incumbent president, assumed office on April 24, 2018.

Accordingly, his five-year tenure will end on April 23, 2023.

Shahabuddin had served in various political and state roles.

In the 1970s, he was president of the Pabna District units Chattra League and Juba League.

During the War of Independence in 1971, Shahabuddin was one of the organisers in the northern region, serving as a student leader and the convener of the Swadhin Bangla Chattra Sangram Parishad.

Along with former Awami League presidium member Mohammad Nasim, he played a crucial role in the Pabna district during the War of Independence.

In 1975, after the assassination of the country’s founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Shahabuddin got arrested and was in prison for three years because he was against the newly formed government that took charge after Sheikh Mujib.

After being released from prison, Shahabuddin went to India.

In 1982, Shahabuddin joined the BCS (Judicial) cadre.

Before that, he held the position of publicity secretary for the Pabna district unit of the Awami League.

He was elected general secretary of the Judicial Service Association in 1995.

Additionally, he was appointed by the ministry of law and parliamentary affairs as a coordinator in the Sheikh Mujib assassination case.

He served as chairman of the judicial inquiry commission formed to investigate communal attacks after the general elections of 2001.

After a 25-year career as a judge, Shahabuddin retired as a district and sessions judge.

Following his tenure as an ACC commissioner, he was appointed as a director of Islami Bank Bangladesh Bank Limited during a change in ownership of the country’s largest private commercial bank.

According to the bank website, he is still serving as a vice-chairman of the bank, representing JMC Builders Limited on the IBBL Board of Directors.

Moreover, he is also an advisor for Global Islami Bank Limited, which was known as NRB Global Bank until its former managing director, Prasanta Kumar Halder, was exposed to massive corruption in the country’s financial sector.

Shahabuddin was appointed as a member of the AL advisory council in 2020.

In 2022, Shahabuddin was appointed chairman of the Awami League’s publicity and publications cell, filling the vacancy left by HT Imam, prime minister Hasina’s advisor.

In the recent national council session of the Awami League, Shahabuddin served as election commissioner.

In his early career, Shahabuddin also worked as a journalist for the Daily Banglar Bani from 1980–1982.