Bangladesh authorities will complete a draft voter list within months, an official said on Saturday, paving the way for elections and the restoration of democracy in the emergency-ruled country.
The Election Commission will publish the draft of the voters list by July, said commission information officer S.M. Asaduzzaman.
There is no doubt about holding the national election by December this year as per the commission’s road map, he added.
Previous elections were cancelled and a military-backed emergency government took power in January 2007 following vote-rigging allegations by the opposition Awami League.
It alleged that officials loyal to the outgoing coalition government, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had drawn up a list containing 14 million fake voters.
The interim government pledged to clean up Bangladesh’s notoriously corrupt politics before holding fresh elections by the end of 2008.