Editorial Desk :
Abuse of the election process is becoming everything to deny the people’s election to the people. Marred by massive irregularities, the recently ended Gazipur Mayoral polls were another electoral charade. Election system in Bangladesh is now nothing but an exercise in engineering the election results for the victory of the government.
As per numerable eye witness accounts, the centres were dominated by reckless abuse of police power resorted by the party in power for arresting indiscriminately to create panic in favour of government’s party’s Mayoral candidate Md Jahangir Alam.
The media reports claimed that campaigners carrying BNP candidate’s badge could not be found in and around most of the centres. Before the election day few hundred BNP followers were arrested. There were no polling agents of BNP in many polling booths while many have been reported
to have posed as BNP Mayoral candidate’s polling agents. The panic was all pervasive for the opposition candidates.
The US Ambassador in Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat yesterday expressed anxiety knowing about the reports of irregularities in Mayoral elections in Khulna and Gazipur. She reminded the government of its commitment to hold free and fair election.
Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain, a former Election Commissioner said that Election Commission had no control over the police and administration. The President of Communist Party of Bangladesh Mujahidul Islam Selim has outright rejected the Gazipur election as stage managed. Nothing could be more disgraceful to be told that the Election Commission had failed to keep control over the Mayoral election in Gazipur and still they are not protesting.
The rigged elections will make “elected representatives of the people” not elected by the people. Whether, local governments or national government, if not elected by the people in a free election there will be no accountability of these men and women to the people. They will be holding public positions in violation of the Constitution and will act in defying the constitutional obligation. The Constitution itself is unsure of its compliance.
The whole fabric of honest and pro-people government has been broken through anti-people election started with the last general election. The government continued, though admittedly no true election took place in 2014. The farcical elections are held to get too many undeserving people in different spheres of the government.
As per media reports, ruling Awami League Mayoral candidate Md Jahangir Alam was unofficially declared elected with a big margin. The Secretary of the Election Commission claimed, as he should, there has been no major incident of violence. He is not altogether lying because the fact that election results are rigged inside the polling booths so peace maintained outside through fear built up over days preceding the polling day is not a surprise.
For rigging elections, violence on election day was unnecessary. What happened before the election day was important. The election results are fully controlled by the official engineers step by step.
The election in Gazipur was manipulated with the active help and cooperation of the officials of the Election Commission. Otherwise such insider activities could not have taken place. The large scale casting of false votes could not have been possible without the connivance from the election officials.
The inaction of the Election Commission in respect of indiscriminate arrests of the supporters of the main opposition candidate ignoring the High Court Division’s clear direction not to arrest followers of any candidate showing old cases was disturbing. Such direction from the Election Commission came too late.
It matters very little even if the BNP candidate was declared elected, when the elected Mayors could be removed by implicating in police cases. The previous BNP Mayor MA Mannan had suffered in jail using police cases against him. He did not get cooperation from the government and failed to work as Mayor.
Our anxiety is that the people’s election is not merely a fight between political parties for winning the election. It should be a serious national responsibility of every citizen to ensure free election to prove our national honesty in holding honest election. Cheating the peoples’ election is cheating the people.
Without the free election the people’s vote counts for nothing and they are nobody in running their affairs as the sovereign people.
Under continuing electoral practice, the vote riggers are more important than the voters. Our regret is why we, including the Election Commission, are not aware that we are not free people if we cannot exercise our voting power freely.
It is important that the government should test its much-touted popularity for development politics by facing free election without fear. Lies of sycophants must be exposed.
Abuse of the election process is becoming everything to deny the people’s election to the people. Marred by massive irregularities, the recently ended Gazipur Mayoral polls were another electoral charade. Election system in Bangladesh is now nothing but an exercise in engineering the election results for the victory of the government.
As per numerable eye witness accounts, the centres were dominated by reckless abuse of police power resorted by the party in power for arresting indiscriminately to create panic in favour of government’s party’s Mayoral candidate Md Jahangir Alam.
The media reports claimed that campaigners carrying BNP candidate’s badge could not be found in and around most of the centres. Before the election day few hundred BNP followers were arrested. There were no polling agents of BNP in many polling booths while many have been reported
to have posed as BNP Mayoral candidate’s polling agents. The panic was all pervasive for the opposition candidates.
The US Ambassador in Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat yesterday expressed anxiety knowing about the reports of irregularities in Mayoral elections in Khulna and Gazipur. She reminded the government of its commitment to hold free and fair election.
Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain, a former Election Commissioner said that Election Commission had no control over the police and administration. The President of Communist Party of Bangladesh Mujahidul Islam Selim has outright rejected the Gazipur election as stage managed. Nothing could be more disgraceful to be told that the Election Commission had failed to keep control over the Mayoral election in Gazipur and still they are not protesting.
The rigged elections will make “elected representatives of the people” not elected by the people. Whether, local governments or national government, if not elected by the people in a free election there will be no accountability of these men and women to the people. They will be holding public positions in violation of the Constitution and will act in defying the constitutional obligation. The Constitution itself is unsure of its compliance.
The whole fabric of honest and pro-people government has been broken through anti-people election started with the last general election. The government continued, though admittedly no true election took place in 2014. The farcical elections are held to get too many undeserving people in different spheres of the government.
As per media reports, ruling Awami League Mayoral candidate Md Jahangir Alam was unofficially declared elected with a big margin. The Secretary of the Election Commission claimed, as he should, there has been no major incident of violence. He is not altogether lying because the fact that election results are rigged inside the polling booths so peace maintained outside through fear built up over days preceding the polling day is not a surprise.
For rigging elections, violence on election day was unnecessary. What happened before the election day was important. The election results are fully controlled by the official engineers step by step.
The election in Gazipur was manipulated with the active help and cooperation of the officials of the Election Commission. Otherwise such insider activities could not have taken place. The large scale casting of false votes could not have been possible without the connivance from the election officials.
The inaction of the Election Commission in respect of indiscriminate arrests of the supporters of the main opposition candidate ignoring the High Court Division’s clear direction not to arrest followers of any candidate showing old cases was disturbing. Such direction from the Election Commission came too late.
It matters very little even if the BNP candidate was declared elected, when the elected Mayors could be removed by implicating in police cases. The previous BNP Mayor MA Mannan had suffered in jail using police cases against him. He did not get cooperation from the government and failed to work as Mayor.
Our anxiety is that the people’s election is not merely a fight between political parties for winning the election. It should be a serious national responsibility of every citizen to ensure free election to prove our national honesty in holding honest election. Cheating the peoples’ election is cheating the people.
Without the free election the people’s vote counts for nothing and they are nobody in running their affairs as the sovereign people.
Under continuing electoral practice, the vote riggers are more important than the voters. Our regret is why we, including the Election Commission, are not aware that we are not free people if we cannot exercise our voting power freely.
It is important that the government should test its much-touted popularity for development politics by facing free election without fear. Lies of sycophants must be exposed.
