Shawdesh desk:

Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal on Thursday said that political consensus was the main challenge in holding the upcoming parliamentary elections.

‘The biggest challenge at this moment is to overcome the political crisis. 100 per cent fair voting is not possible, regardless of whether EVMs or ballot papers are used,’ the CEC said at a news briefing in front of his office at the Agargaon Nirbachan Bhaban in Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

‘EVM or ballot is not a big challenge for the upcoming elections. The challenge is the participation of political parties,’ the CEC said.

He urged the two major political parties to hold talks to resolve the ongoing political crisis.

The CEC’s comment came while the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies were in movement and saying that they would not participate in the next general elections under the ruling Awami League government and the AL was saying that the next national polls, as per the constitution, would be held under the AL government.

The CEC said that if the major parties did not participate in the elections at all, the election would not be legitimate.

‘The legitimacy may go down to zero. We have to understand the difference between legality and legitimacy. The election can be legal, but it may not be legitimate,’ he said.

‘It will be up to the Election Commission to ensure that all parties can participate in the elections. If all the parties participate in the election, the election will be acceptable to the people,’ he said.

The CEC, responding to a question from a journalist, said that the EC themselves decided to hold the next general elections using ballot papers and that they took the decision under no one’s pressure.

He, however, said that the EVMs were more secured than ballots as stopping rigging was easy if EVM’s were uses.

He said that the EC would, until the last moment, continue their efforts to bring all the political parties to the next national elections.