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Rampant rigging makes by-polls unacceptable

Fema, Brotee release reports on 103 polling centres

Staff Correspondent
fair Election Monitoring Alliance (Fema) and Brotee, two leading election monitoring bodies, yesterday reported wholesale rigging and rampant irregularities at the July 1 parliamentary by-polls to Dhaka-10, and termed it tire 'worst ever election held under any government in die recent past'.
"The election was not fair and is
unacceptable," said Brotee Chief Executive Sharmeen Murshid, adding, "Our democratic and voting rights have been snatched from us once again, this time by an elected government"
At a joint press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity, they released their primary observation reports on the polls and demanded investigation into the anomalies in
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what they said was a facade called election by an independent commission.
The election watchdogs had deployed trained election observers at all the 103 poling centres in the constituency, where they were present throughout the balloting. They alleged the entire election process was impaired by 'abuse of power' by the polling officials concerned under coercive influence of the ruling alliance and its cadres.
The election monitoring groups also came down on the Election Commission (EC) for its failure to protect the sanctity of the electoral process and respond to the 'storm of protests' that came from election observers as well as voters and political parties. They expressed surprise over the acting chief election commissioner's statement that he had not received any complaint.
They demanded separation of the EC, a constitutional entity, from what they said were 'the snares of the government'.
"We, citizens and voters, note with concern, shame and anger that the degeneration of the Election Commission from an independent constitutional body to a mere expansion of the government and a tool in the hands of ruling parties to control and manipulate elections. Instead of improving its governance of elections and gaining in strength the EC is becoming weaker and losing credibility," said Sharmeen Murshid while presenting the Brotee report.
"This election has undone all the little positive gains the Election Commission had made [over the years]," she added.
Murshid said the EC and the ruling government have accepted the results of the election participated by only 35 percent voters of which she said 55 percent were impostors. Brotee officials said they used internationally recognised method in counting false votes and preparing the queer vote matrix.
According to Brotee's queer vote matrix, the participation of genuine voters was very limited, though the total voter presence was 73 percent. The average vote cast was 38 percent while 35 percent of the voters left without casting vote. And of the 38 percent votes cast, 55 percent were 'false' and the rest, 45 percent, genuine.
Based on its sample study on the voter list, which has not been updated, Brotee said 30 percent of
the voters had migrated to other areas, of whom 25 percent were found to have voted. Of these votes cast, Brotee said 20 to 25 percent were false votes.
The presence of women voters was very limited, as only 25 percent of them voted, including the fake ones. "So, actually, participation by women voters was even lesser," Murshid told the conference.
"In a record haste, [ruling alliance candidate and declared winner in the by-polls] Mosaddak Ali was sworn in without any attempt to scrutinise the validity of the allegations raised by the observers and political parties," she noted.
Both the observer groups labelled the absence of troops at the election centres as a contempt of court, and said their presence could have contained the chaos witnessed in the polling booths.
Fema Secretary General Muhammad Abdul Matin termed the election as an unusual event in the history of Bangladesh -- a 'onesided' show -- and said dominance of the four-party alliance candidate was keenly felt at almost all the polling stations.
According to Fema election observation report, supporters of the ruling coalition candidate evicted polling agents of Bikalpa Dhara from the centres, while ruling party activists roved around freely in large numbers in and outside the polling stations.
The Fema also reported of busloads of people being brought from different areas including Lalbagh and Jatrabari outside the constituency to cast fake votes, which they did "wherever possible. As a result, many genuine voters could not cast their votes."
The Fema observers did not find any army men inside the polling stations or places adjacent to those, although news media channels had reported that at least five troops would be deployed at each election centre. They, however, saw members of the armed police and ansar stationed at those places.
The report said backs of the ballot papers in possession of the assistant presiding officers of most of the polling stations were found to have been stamped in advance with official seal of the EC, 'providing ample scope for stuffing'.