Proportional representation: unlikely to be recommended

The Electoral Reform Commission is likely to refrain from recommending a proportional representation system, ignoring the proposal from most political parties.

The reform commission is expected to submit its report to Chief Advisor Professor Muhammad Yunus soon.

“We are not going to recommend the establishment of proportional representation,” said a member of the commission, on condition of anonymity.

Proportional representation is an electoral system in which the distribution of seats corresponds to the proportion of the total votes cast for each party. For example, if a party obtains 40 percent of the total votes, the PR system will allow it to obtain 40 percent of the seats in Parliament.

When contacted, Electoral Reform Commission Chairman Badiul Alam Majumdar avoided responding directly on the issue.

“Proportional representation is an issue related to the Constitutional Reform Commission,” he said.

Badiul also said that the Electoral Reform Commission was trying its best to submit the report today.

Professor Ali Riaz, chairman of the Constitution Reform Commission, said they had received proposals both for and against the proportional representation system.

“We are carefully studying the arguments of both sides,” he told the Daily Star.

“In addition, we studied the positive and negative aspects of the system. Since we have not yet finalized our recommendations, I cannot disclose any specific proposals at this time, particularly those related to the proportional representation system,” he added.

Currently, Bangladesh practices the first-past-the-post system, in which the candidate who obtains the highest number of votes in a constituency wins a seat in Parliament.

The caretaker government formed the electoral reform commission and five others on October 3 and requested their reports within 90 days. Yesterday, the government gave the electoral reform commission another 15 days to submit its report, said commission member Abdul Alim.

Since its inception, the Electoral Reform Commission has received proposals from stakeholders including political parties, former chief election commissioners, members of different citizen platforms and the general public.

Party sources said Jamaat-e-Islami, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Gono Odhikar Parishad and Islami Andolan Bangladesh suggested the proportional representation electoral system in their proposals to the reform commission.

However, the BNP was against the system. A member of the party’s standing committee told the Daily Star yesterday that it had not included the system in its proposals.

The BNP leader, who wished to remain anonymous, warned that proportional representation could give an advantage to the Awami League, which was ousted in the 2024 mass uprising.

It may also increase the risk of potential candidates offering bribes since their fate will depend on the party’s nomination and not votes.

“We are not in favor of the proportional representation system,” Abdul Moyeen Khan, a member of the BNP standing committee, told the newspaper.

“We believe in the ‘one voter, one vote’ method, which has endured in the Westminster system for several centuries. People not only vote for the party, but also for the candidates,” he said.