Ex-bureaucrat made new EC
Govt yet to announce formally
Staff Correspondent
In a sudden move, the government yesterday appointed former bureaucrat Mahmud Hasan Mansur as an election commissioner, raising the number of members in the Election Commission (EC) to four. On the advice of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, President Iajuddin Ahmed last evening gave his seal of approval to the appointment, said Bangabhaban sources. However, the government did not yet make a formal announcement regarding the appointment. Rather the matter was kept so secret that even the secretary of the EC Secretariat and registrar of the Supreme Court, who are usually closely related to the conduct of oath for an election commissioner, could not say when the ceremony will take place. "I haven't received any notification to this effect. We will arrange an oath-taking to be administered by the chief justice only on receipt of the notification," Fazlul Karim, registrar of the Supreme Court, told The Daily Star last night. He said the EC Secretariat usually sends a notification of such appointment with a request for organising an oath-taking. Talking to The Daily Star last night, Secretary of the EC Secretariat Abdur Rashid Sarkar said he does not know anything about it. The Supreme Court registrar said if any such appointment had been given, the oath-taking of the new entrant to the commission would take place after the weekends. Hasan Mansur Mahmud, hailing from Bogra, had served as a secretary to the post and telecommunications and defence ministries on contractual basis. Earlier, the government appointed Justice MA Aziz as the chief election commissioner (CEC) on May 23 last year and two other election commissioners--Justice Mahfuzur Rahman and SM Zakaria-- on January 16 this year, ignoring the opposition's demand for consensus appointments. The 14-Party opposition combine led by Awami League (AL), which had rejected the previous appointments, has long been calling for resignation of all the members of the EC and new appointments on the basis of consensus. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, AL organising secretary and political secretary to AL President Sheikh Hasina, in his reaction told The Daily Star last night that yet another politically motivated appointment came at a time when reconstitution of the EC has grown to be a national demand. He observed that the appointment was given as part of the ruling alliance's plot to engineer the upcoming election, and it further exposes the hostile and confrontational attitude of the government.
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