The schedule for holding the upcoming 13th parliamentary elections is likely to be announced in mid-December this year.
Election Commission senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed, unveiling a detailed electoral action plan outlining 24 tasks that must be completed to hold the next parliamentary elections before Ramadan in February 2026, said on Thursday that the official election schedule would be announced in December.
Though he did not mention any specific date for announcing the election schedule, he said that the schedule for the next national election would be declared two months before the election.
Ramadan is expected to begin mid-February 2026.
After the announcement of the detailed election road map, most of the political parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and Ganosamhati Andolan, welcomed it. The National Citizens Party and the Islami Andolan Bangladesh criticised the road map as it was announced before the finalisation of the July Charter.
Addressing a press conference at Nirbachan Bhaban on Thursday, EC senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed announced the roadmap for the next general election and said that all preparatory tasks must be completed before the announcement of the official election schedule.
The roadmap outlined the timetable for updating the voter list, registering political parties, finalising constituency boundaries,聽 training polling officials, arranging polling stations, accrediting observers, procuring materials, ensuring ICT readiness, managing postal ballots, and launching voter awareness campaigns.
The action plan, prepared in accordance with a directive from the office of the Chief Adviser, sets the election for before next year鈥檚 Ramadan.
鈥楾herefore, we are informing you today of our action plan. Targeting the next national election, we have prepared our plan by dividing our tasks into 24 broad sections,鈥� the secretary said.
According to the roadmap, the registration of new political parties is under way, with the EC expecting to complete all formalities and issue the final approval through a gazette notification on September 30.
The final delimitation of 300 constituencies will be gazetted on September 15. A draft list of polling centres will be published on September 10, with objections accepted until September 20.
The commission will review these inputs and finalise the list by October 5, before issuing a gazette notification at least 25 days before the polling day.
Stakeholder consultations with political parties, academics, civil society groups, women鈥檚 organisations, journalists and observers are scheduled for the last week of September.
Accreditation of election observers will begin later in September. Applications and hearings for local groups will run from September 28 to October 8, followed by hearings from October 9 to 22.
Certificates for foreign observer groups will be issued by November 15.
Training-of-trainers programmes for around 3,600 officials will begin on September 16 and continue until November 30.
Panels of polling officers will be prepared throughout September, while the printing of electoral manuals and forms will start in mid-September to align with the training sessions.
The ICT division of the EC will finalise election software updates by October 31. Postal ballot mobile applications will be trialed in October to test reliability.
Training of administrative and police officers is scheduled to be completed by October. Polling manuals, posters and handbooks will also be finalised by the end of the month.
Preparations for a large-scale voter awareness campaign will begin on October 1, with the design of television, radio and print materials to be completed by late November.
Civic voter education initiatives will be launched after the announcement of the election schedule and will continue until two days before the polling day.
SMS alerts and video tutorials will also be rolled out during this period.
By November, budgetary and logistical preparations will be finalised. Allocation rates and demand lists will be set by November 5.
A coordination meeting with law enforcement agencies will take place on November 20.
A law-and-order coordination cell comprising the police, armed forces and cyber security agencies will be formed one week before the polling day.
On December 1, election materials will be dispatched to field offices.
Transparent ballot boxes will be inspected and adjusted by November 30. Printing of forms, packets and manuals must be finished by November 16.
The final voter list will be published on November 30, just before the announcement of the election schedule.
The roadmap also includes arrangements for overseas and voters in prisons. Printing and personalisation of overseas ballots must be completed by November 10, with dispatch scheduled by January 5, 2026.
Postal ballots for prisoners will be prepared in December, with materials dispatched to jails about two weeks before the election day. The return of ballots must be ensured before results are compiled.
Testing of the result dissemination system will take place in December, ahead of polling, to ensure prompt reporting on election night.
Digital monitors displaying unofficial preliminary results will be installed at EC headquarters 10 days before the polling day.
A countdown clock will also be activated on the EC website after declaring the election schedule.
BNP Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed welcomed the road map and said that it was aligned with public and political parties鈥� expectations and the chief adviser鈥檚 announcement that the national polls would be held in the first half of February 2026.
Although Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general Hamidur Rahman Azad expressed concerns that the road map seemed somewhat superficial due to the lack of broader agreements on the election system, he said that his party was taking the announcement as a positive move.
Ganosamhati Andolan chief coordinator Zonayed Saki welcomed the election road map, saying that it was essentially the formal declaration of the interim government鈥檚 election plan.
National Citizen Party said that the announcement of the election road map before finalising the July charter was nothing but a violation of the commitment of the interim government.
The party鈥檚 senior joint convener Ariful Islam Adib, in a press conference at the party鈥檚 central office in Dhaka, said that they hoped that the interim government would announce the national election road map after holding trials of the fascists, holding required reforms and finalising the July charter.
The Islami Andolan Bangladesh, in a statement sent to the media by its joint secretary general and spokesman Gazi Ataur Rahman on Thursday, criticised the road map, saying that it was nothing but following the previous system, by which it would be difficult to hold the next general election in a free, fair and credible manner.
The party said that the interim government, besides taking preparations for the next general election, must announce the road map to finalise and implement the July Charter.