These were not the elections we were hoping for
It is truly disappointing that there have been such widespread, credible, and often documented allegations of rigging and irregularities in yesterday’s city corporation elections in Dhaka and Chittagong.
We had all hoped for elections that were fully above board and thus fully participatory and inclusive, and that might have been the first step in the restart of the political process and constructive re-engagement between the government and the opposition.
This was not to be, and the government is answerable for the innumerable allegations against its supporters for attempting to rig votes during Tuesday’s polls in the city corporation elections.
After last year’s uncontested national elections, this was a chance for the ruling party to demonstrate its democratic bona fides by presiding over free and fair elections. They did not rise to the challenge.
At RK Chowdhury College in Jatrabari, a Dhaka Tribune reporter was offered a bribe by a ward chief of the ruling party not to file a report about one of the polling station’s five booths being taken over by AL supporters.
At the Samirunnesa School centre in Shamibagh, Chhatra League activists were seen snatching ballot papers from a presiding officer and stamping the papers while threatening him with a gun.
In centre after centre, police barred reporters from observing proceedings.
There have also been numerous reports of polling agents for BNP-backed and other opposition candidates being harassed, threatened, intimidated, and expelled from or kept out of voting centres.
Moreover, significant numbers of voters report being turned away from centres because their votes had already been cast by others.
These were by no means isolated incidents, and the extent of the irregularities is sufficient to call the entire elections into question.
These were not the elections we were hoping for, and once again it is the Bangladeshi people who have lost. Once again, they have been denied a free and fair election in which to make their voices heard.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
