Bangladesh elections now unlikely before next year

DHAKA, (Reuters)

Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, postponed in January amid widespread street violence, may now not take place until early next year, a key official at the Election Commission suggested.

The commission planned to complete registration of parties seeking to contest the elections by July and then draw up a list of voters, election commissioner Sakhawat Hossain told reporters.

An overhaul of the voters list would require six months at least, experts consulted by the election commission said.

"Our prime task is to hold a free and credible election. So we are trying to address every related issue and putting plans cautiously," Sakhawat, a former army brigadier-general, said late on Friday.

"We really can't rush."

The army-backed interim administration has simultaneously launched a crackdown on corruption, insisting that no election can be held until Bangladeshi politics are cleansed of widespread graft and critical reforms implemented to ensure a free election.

The election commission has said it will hold the next election without insisting on voter identity cards, in order not to delay it further. But voters' photographs affixed to their names on the electoral roll will be used to prevent fraud.

The commission said, however, that in order to ensure future elections were transparent and credible, it would ask the government to issue identity cards to all citizens.

Over 90 million of Bangladesh's more than 140 million people were registered as eligible to vote in the election that was originally set for Jan. 22 but postponed after 45 people were killed and hundreds injured in countrywide violence.

Many local and foreign poll watchers said there were thousands of fake entries on the existing voters' list.

Most Bangladeshis say they want the interim government to "eliminate" corruption from politics and governance before setting an election date.

Army-led security forces have detained more than 160 senior political figures, mostly from the two major parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in the anti-sleaze drive.

The son and heir apparent of BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia, prime minister until her term expired last October, is among the detainees. Police said Tareque Rahman faced a likely jail sentence of up to five years if convicted on a graft charge.