Election Commission is moving to classify administrator posts in local government bodies as “offices of profit”, a step that would bar serving administrators from contesting elections and derail the mayoral ambitions of many BNP leaders.
If the commission’s proposal is accepted, administrators would be legally required to relinquish their posts three years before standing for election.
EC officials said the move follows growing concerns that serving administrators could exploit their positions and access to state resources to tilt elections in their favour.
The proposal received preliminary policy approval at a commission meeting on amendments to local government laws.
Any formal legal change, however, will ultimately depend on the government.
“The EC does not consider it appropriate for anyone to contest an election while serving as an administrator,” Election Commissioner Abdur Rahmanel Masud told TIMES of Bangladesh. “We are therefore considering whether the administrator’s post should be classified as an office of profit.”
Following Awami League government’s fall in 2024 mass uprising, the interim government dissolved city corporations, upazila parishads, zila parishads, and municipalities, replacing elected representatives with administrators.
After the BNP came to power, party-affiliated figures were appointed to administrative posts, particularly across city corporations.
Many are now gearing up to contest the upcoming local elections as mayoral candidates. The BNP government has also appointed party-backed administrators to almost all zila parishads. Indeed, across the country’s 13 city corporations, administrators in 12 are directly involved in BNP politics, while the remaining corporation already has a BNP leader serving as mayor.
Election Commissioner Anwarul Islam Sarkar said the commission took a dim view of administrators running for office whilst holding power.
“There is a clear restriction in the case of MPs, yet the rules are far more relaxed for city corporation mayors,” he said. “A city mayor enjoys ministerial status, yet the rules are entirely different. We therefore believe the law needs amending.”
Sarkar added that regardless of which legal framework governs an election, the commission will seek to ensure the issue is explicitly tackled.
Calls to bar administrators from standing have already been raised by several political parties.
Jamaat-e-Islami, the main opposition party in parliament, recently wrote to the Election Commission demanding that administrators and development authority officials be declared ineligible to contest elections involving the institutions they oversee.
“A provision must be added stipulating that any administrator appointed to a local government body, or any person serving in a development authority, shall be deemed ineligible to contest the relevant election,” the party said in its letter.
Islami Andolan Bangladesh has voiced a similar demand.
“Allowing an administrator to contest an election effectively hands them victory in advance,” IAB Secretary General Gazi Ataur Rahman told TIMES of Bangladesh. “They will contest using state facilities, which inevitably compromises the election. Many have already kicked off early campaigning whilst serving as administrators.”
The party is pushing for even tougher restrictions, demanding that administrators be barred from contesting elections for three years after stepping down.
“We want anyone who resigns as an administrator to remain ineligible to stand for election for the following three years,” Rahman said.
However, Saiful Huq, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Workers Party of Bangladesh, pushed back against the proposed ban, arguing it would disproportionately hit the BNP.
“Many BNP leaders and activists are currently serving as administrators,” he told TIMES. “If this law is passed, it will directly target the BNP. There is currently no legal basis for such a provision, so introducing it now would be a biased decision.”
