BANGLADESH

Kazi Habibul Awal named new CEC

The government has appointed Former Senior Secretary to the Ministry of Defence  Kazi Habibul Awal  as the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC).

The Cabinet Division published a gazette notification in this regard on Saturday (February 26).

President Abdul Hamid on Saturday (26 February) appointed him and other Election Commissioners a day after the EC search committee submitted the shortlist of candidates.

Other members of the commission are former District and Session Judge Begum Rashida Sultana, former Brigadier General Ahsan Habib Khan, former Senior Secretary Md Alamgir and former Senior Secretary Anisur Rahman.

The President appointed them for a five-year tenure. They are likely to take oaths in the Supreme Court on Sunday (February 27).

He served as a district judge in different districts and joined the legislative drafting wing of the ministry as joint secretary in 2000 and was promoted to the additional secretary in 2003.

Later, he was appointed as Senior Secretary in the same ministry on 1 December 2014. He retired on 20 January 2015.

He was then reappointed as Senior Secretary again in Defence Ministry on 21 January 2015.

Earlier on 24 February, the EC search committee handed over the final list of 10 candidates to the president in a meeting at the Bangabhaban.

This is the first time that an election commission has been formed through a search committee under the EC formation law, passed in the parliament on 27 January.

The nominations were finalised by shortlisting 320 candidates in seven separate meetings of the search panel. The committee also held four meetings with eminent citizens and journalists, many of whom repeatedly called for making the list public.

Later the panel published the initial list of 322 candidates but refrained from publishing the final picks, saying it did not have the legal authority to do so.

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