Editorial Desk :
The use of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) in elections in Bangladesh is unreliable for various reasons. Rights campaigners said that there is a scope for manipulating results through different programming and other technical knowledge. This means that there is no way to trust the person behind the machines and no way to review or verify the votes that are cast through EVMs. We think the issue of EVM is very contentious now, and it is better to keep a distance from that unless there is a national consensus on it.
The recent statements by the Awami League high-ups that electronic voting machines will be used in all constituencies in the next general election have triggered a fresh debate, as the BNP vehemently opposes it while the Election Commission remains undecided. Whether EVMs will be used or not in the polls is at the absolute discretion of the
Election Commission. But the Commission is now under pressure as the Awami League said it wants EVMs in all the parliamentary seats. A number of civil society members and eminent citizens in recent talks with the EC opined that the Commission should refrain from using EVMs in polls unless there is a national consensus on the matter.
There are serious concerns about the ability of the EC to hold a fair, acceptable, inclusive national election. Its abject failures in the recent past and unwillingness to accept the failings had nothing to do with the non-availability of a dazzling expensive technology. The pointless discussion that the EC has engendered through this decision on the EVM only distracts us from those fundamental issues.
The major challenge of the EC is to ensure the safety and security of polling stations as the ruling party men have access to everywhere, wherever they wish. Besides, the law enforcement agencies and election management bodies are supportive of the ruling party men both administratively and ideologically, meaning the system is not workable for holding free, fair and inclusive elections.
As long as the government retains full control over election victory, it is all right. But the truth is that the government has also no faith in free election for victory. The government will be found most reluctant to wait to face free election if conditions can be ensured for free election in the sense parliamentary elections are held elsewhere. The ignorance of former Chief Justice A.B.M. Khairul Haque as to how parliamentary elections are held had damaged the cause of free election by casting his vote in favour of the wrong idea that election time government has also to be an elected government. This is not possible after the election is dissolved. This led them to hurriedly change the Constitution to jettison the constitutional provision for election time non-party caretaker government. Now we have an unelected bureaucratic government and a democratic government.
If we are to be known as a democracy we must ensure dissolution of the parliament before the election. It will prove that we are not so uneducated or inexperienced that we do not know what democracy is. If we are not fit for democracy, let the people in power say so and forget all about election. Let them be honest about it. Bangabandhu formed BAKSAL government openly admitting that it was a revolutionary government.
