CEC convenes urgent press conference amid resignation rumours

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has convened an urgent press conference at 12:00 noon tomorrow (Thursday) amid the rumours of his resignation.

He stated it to reporters while coming out from the Nirbachan Bhaban at Agargaon in the capital on Wednesday.

Asked whether they were resigning, Kazi Habibul Awal said: “I would not say anything else about the matter right now. I would tell you in details at 12:00 noon on Thursday.”

When asked whether the president told him anything else, he said: “He (President) told me to meet with him.”

The Kazi Habibul Awal-led commission has been maintaining silence since Sheikh Hasina was ousted on August 5 last. It didn’t take any initiative to conduct any local body election in the last one month.

However, the CEC wrote an article that was published in a Bengali daily on August 24 saying that the Election Commission is in a crisis amid the successful post-revolution constitutional situation.

The current commission drew strong criticism from various quarters including BNP and other political parties for holding the lopsided general election on January 7, 2024, which created the way for Awami League to go to power for the fourth consecutive term.

On February 27, 2022, former secretary Kazi Habibul Awal took the charge of the Chief Election Commissioner, while four others — former district and sessions judge Rashida Sultana, Brig Gen (Retd) Md Ahsan Habib Khan, and former secretaries Md Alamgir and Anisur Rahman, took the charges as Election Commissioners.