THE mayoral and councillor candidates of Dhaka north and south city corporations are conducting election campaign in full swing giving a lot of promises, but the city dwellers are showing a very little interest in their pledges. About a dozen candidates are vying for the mayoral post in the bifurcated corporations, but the main contestants are four- two each from ruling Awami League and opposition BNP. They are on canvass throughout the day at places across the capital but the voters haven’t regained their lost faith on the Election Commission for staggering midnight election with police help. Besides, EC’s stubbornness to use EVM in city election also has made the general people more doubtful. It’s an old trend that election comes with a lot of promises along with some funny activities by candidates, such as preparing tea, playing cricket, praying in mosques, etcetera. Under the present government, people witnessed no real election that was free, fair, credible and impartial. None of the Commissions, led by Rakib or Huda, could arrange a credible one. In fact, the election has become rubber stamp clearance for legitimising the government-supported candidates.
The ruling-party blessed candidates poured promises to build liveable, traffic jam free Dhaka, while at the same time the campaigns were obstructing the roads triggering huge tailbacks. The opposition said fear among voters is growing as the situation is getting worse day by day, opposition candidates are regularly complaining for intimidation, partisan role of law enforcing agencies. But no one there to pay heed to the problems. There is no electoral code violation for government supported candidates.
The government has ruined all faith in fair election. But people with money have a bad habit of spending large sums of money merely for publicity. Election being money game the moneyed people find nothing wrong in trying to have access to making more money.
