Bangladesh's High Court has scrapped an Election Commission rule that barred political parties from participating in local government polls, officials and lawyers said on Friday. “The commission will abide by the High Court verdict and has no plan to make an appeal against it,” Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M. Shamsul Huda said after the judgment, which was delivered on Thursday. The commission had barred parties from contesting or directly campaigning for local elections, arguing polls to city corporations and municipalities were “non-partisan” and should be kept free from “undue political influence”. That triggered strong protests from major political parties, especially those headed by former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia. The High Court ruled that the commission “has no authority to force people to quit politics to sign up in local elections or if they are elected”. In previous local elections candidates were not directly drawn from political parties, but many used local politics to establish a powerbase for contesting national elections. Thursday's judgment cleared the way for political parties to participate or join campaigning by candidates in the Aug. 4 elections to four city corporations and nine municipalities. These will be the first polls called by the army-backed interim government, which took power in January last year following widespread political violence.
