BANGLADESH has finally closed off the chapter of Upazila polls with an exponential intensification of violence and widespread straight forward frauds from one phase to the next with incidents of death, capturing of polling centers, stuffing of ballot boxes with counterfeit ballots and what not. Evidently there is a direct correlation between the intensity of violence and the number of seats won by Awami League-backed candidates, which reached the peak in the last four phases. What is even more alarming that, with the acting chief election commissioner humiliating and hate speech against the opposition BNP and its allies, the Election Commission and the law enforcers complicity in these crimes are also fairly established.
Even in the post-poll development of last phase of polls, the UP chairman of Fulgazi upazila was burnt to death as miscreants attacked his vehicle yesterday. The EC earlier held polls in 459 out of a total of 487 upazila councils in five phases of the polls that began on February 19. According to a media report at least 12 people were killed and several hundred people were injured in violence in the last five phases of the local polls. Election observer organization ‘Brotee’ in its primary report said that ‘most of the polling stations had witnessed capture of polling stations and ballot stuffing.’
The role that the acting chief election commissioner and the EC at large have played, have made it exceptionally clear that the Commission, under the current regime, are either unable or unwilling to deliver any polls – national or local – in a participatory, free and fair way. It is emphatically established that the staggered upazila elections were won almost exclusively by leaders and activists of the ruling party particularly in the last few phases while the law enforcers including the army seemingly watched helplessly. Nevertheless, the Election Commission came out as being shamelessly loyal to the ruling party and continued to sing the AL tune of ‘peaceful, free and fair elections’.
The members of the security and law enforcement agencies also participated in the mass fraud and vote rigging ceremonies by either turning a blind eye or actively supporting the AL cause by driving out voters from polling stations because they did not vote in the January 5 general elections.
Compared to the uncontested and non-participatory general elections of January 5 that the ruling party premeditated and delivered violence and vote frauds, the last upazila elections have provided almost indisputable proofs that the ruling party will resort to violence of any sort in the national or local elections, to garner victory for their candidates. As the violence and vote fraud intensified, most of the voters have not only been disenfranchised, they have become demoralized and they don’t have any faith in the electoral process now. This is definitely a wakeup call for democrats to regain democracy from the diverging path of the monstrous totalitarian autocracies of the past.
