Online Desk: Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said debate over the presidential election was “unnecessary and unexpected”. He said that while scrutinising the nomination paper of Mohammed Shahabuddin, the ruling party nominee and the president-elect, the Election Commission reviewed the constitution, relevant laws and rules and found that there was no barrier for him to be elected president.

According to law, after the end of an individual’s service as a commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission, the person will not be eligible to hold an office of profit in the service of the government. Shahabuddin is a former commissioner of the ACC. The CEC pointed out that a High Court ruling in 1996 had said that “the President of Bangladesh holds office of profit, but it is not an office of profit in the service of the Republic”.

Habibul Awal said the Anti-Corruption Commission law says that at the end of his/her tenure, a commissioner shall not be eligible to get appointment to hold any profitable office in the service of the republic. “There is a difference between appointment and being elected. He [Shahabuddin] is not appointed; rather, he is elected,” Habibul said.

Md Shahabuddin was elected to the post of president unopposed on Monday. The government on that day issued a gazette notification declaring Shahabuddin, a retired district judge and former ACC commissioner, as the president-elect.