A claim has been circulating on the social media platform Facebook stating that the upcoming 13th national parliamentary election will be held under the Proportional Representation (PR) system, as announced by Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

See the post being circulated in the form of a photo card here (archive), here (archive), and here) (archive).

See more Facebook posts spreading the same claim here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).

Fact-check

Rumor Scanner Team’s investigation finds that Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus has not made any comment so far regarding the system under which the upcoming national election will be held. In fact, the statement being circulated using his name is entirely baseless.

Through keyword searches on Google, no such comment from Dr. Muhammad Yunus regarding the upcoming election has been found in any news outlet or reliable source.

The investigation found a video dated June 26, where the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) A. M. M. Nasir Uddin spoke to the media after meeting with the Chief Adviser. That video can be found here. In the video, the CEC informed the media that although various aspects of election preparations were discussed with the Chief Adviser, no conversation took place regarding the election date. Furthermore, no comment was made by the Chief Adviser about the electoral system under which the election would be held.

To verify whether the Chief Adviser ever made such a comment, the Rumor Scanner Team spoke with his Deputy Press Secretary, Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumdar. He confirmed to us that Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus did not make any such statement. The statement being circulated in his name is completely false.

What is the PR System?

Proportional Representation (PR) is an electoral system where seats are distributed in proportion to the votes each political party receives.

Therefore, the claim that Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus said the upcoming 13th national parliamentary election will be held under the PR system is entirely false.