Bangladesh voter roll rises to 128.6 million ahead of local elections

Bangladesh’s registered voter count has risen to 128,632,555 after the Election Commission added 309,315 voters over two months and 18 days, officials said.

The updated electoral roll will be used for upcoming local government elections, Election Commission senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed told reporters at the commission’s headquarters in Dhaka. The previous update, issued May 14, listed 128,323,240 voters.

“We are focusing on the local government elections for now,” Akhtar said.

The commission also sent draft codes of conduct covering city corporations, district councils, upazila parishads, municipalities and union parishads to the law ministry for vetting.

Meanwhile, the commission began distributing nomination papers for the presidential election. Two papers were collected by Bangladesh Nationalist Party officials Nurul Islam Moni and Ruhul Kabir Rizvi. No other party or candidate had collected papers by the afternoon, Akhtar said.