18 more parties apply for EC registration

Eighteen more political parties applied for registration with the Election Commission on Sunday – the last day for filing applications to participate in the upcoming 12th national election.

With the latest addition, the total number of aspirant parties reached 98.

The commission on Monday released the final list of applicants after revising the earlier version published on Sunday.

Election Commission Senior Assistant Secretary Rowshon Ara Begum told The Business Standard that the 18 parties that filed applications at the last moment before the deadline could not be added to Sunday's list as thousands of pages of documents submitted with the applications could not be checked on the day.

Bangladesh Garib Party, Bangladesh Sot Sangrami Voters Party, Forward Party, Rajnaitik Andolan, Swadesh Kalyan Karmasuchi, and Bangladesh Forayezi Andolan are some of the 18 parties.

Earlier on Sunday, the commission published a list of 80 political parties.

According to the Representation of the People Order, 1972 (President's Order), any party willing to contest the national parliamentary or local government elections, must have registration with the EC.

For the newly formed parties, it is mandatory to fulfil some preconditions to get registered such as having a central office, effective committees in at least one-third of the administrative districts, and at least 200 voters in each of the 100 upazilas or metropolitan police stations.

During the 11th national elections in 2018, a total of 76 political parties submitted applications for registration. But none of them was found eligible for registration. Later, two political parties got registration following court orders.  

Before that, 43 political parties applied for registration ahead of the 10th national polls, of which only two got registration, as the rest failed to fulfil the conditions.

In 2008, the EC introduced the rule for registration. At present, the number of registered political parties is 39.