The process of distributing nomination forms for the Chittagong University Central Students’ Union (CUCSU) election has commenced. The process began formally on Sunday morning at the Election Commission office located in the CUCSU building on the university campus.
Chief Election Commissioner Monir Uddin stated that students wishing to contest for the 26 central union positions and 15 residential hall positions in the CUCSU election can collect nomination forms. The process, which started on Sunday morning, will continue until Wednesday afternoon at 3:30pm.
On the first day, Taiful Alam Faraji, an independent candidate from the 2018-19 academic year of the Management Department and a student of Shahjahal Hall, collected a nomination form for the position of CUCSU Sports Secretary.
27,634 voters in CUCSU election
The Election Commission has published the final voter list for the CUCSU election. 1,768 new students have been added to the list. Accordingly, the total number of voters is 27,634.
However, the commission could not provide specific information regarding the number of male and female students. Election Commission Member Secretary AKM Ariful Haque Siddiqui stated that the numbers of male and female students will be provided by Monday or Tuesday.
Chittagong University has 14 residential halls and one hostel; among these, five halls are for female students and the remaining ten are for male students.
In this election, along with undergraduate and postgraduate students, MPhil and PhD students will also be eligible to be candidates. However, while submitting nomination forms, all candidates must submit the results of a drug test. This test must be conducted at the university medical centre by paying a specified fee. Candidates cannot submit or collect nomination forms with more than five supporters.
Election Commission Member Secretary AKM Ashraful Haque Siddiqui informed that a fee of Tk300 taka must be paid to collect a nomination form for the central union election. A fee of Tk200 has been set for collecting nomination forms for the hall union elections.
While collecting nomination forms, candidates must provide proof of the final voter list online and their student voter ID number. Subsequently, nomination forms must be collected by showing identification cards. When submitting nomination forms, candidates must submit their identification cards, photographs, and drug test results. Detailed information on this will be provided in the nomination forms.
CUCSU election to be held after a long 35 years
The Chhatra Union election is scheduled to be held on October 12, after a long 35 years. The last Chhatra Union election was held on February 8, 1990. Due to political instability and various complexities, no election has been organised since then.
However, in the context of the country’s changing political landscape, the election schedule has been announced under a non-partisan government this year.
The election schedule was formally published on August 28. According to the schedule, September 18 will be the last day for the distribution and submission of nomination forms. Thereafter, the preliminary list of candidates will be published on September 21.
The opportunity to withdraw nominations will be on September 23, and after resolving objections regarding candidacy by September 24, the final list of candidates will be published on September 25.
From the publication of the final list until the day before the election, candidates can campaign every day from 10am to 10pm.
