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First round of upazila elections: An appraisal

Badiul Alam Majumder
The recent upazila elections were held in time, and can be said to be a positive thing since the tenure of the upazila parishads was coming to an end. It's not possible to form the upazila parishad without elections, and it's a constitutional obligation too. Moreover, as per our constitution, it's mandatory to have upazila parishads.
We are concerned at the allegations of vote rigging, anarchy and unruly behaviour of the ruling party in some upazilas. Almost none among the few thousand elections that were held in Bangladesh since October, 2008 saw any violence, so we were optimistic that the culture of violence had finally been curbed, but it did not happen, as we saw from the recent elections. More specifically, with the last parliamentary elections held on January 5, we are witnessing the return of the culture of violence.
It should also be noted that the Election Commission (EC) failed to perform as per expectations. The EC, if it had intended, could have ensured security in all the 97 upazilas more effectively. If it had wanted to, the EC could have prevented the incidents of ballot box snatching, fake voting and ousting of rival candidates with proper deployment of law enforcers. The situation in 35 centres of the Sonatola upazila especially was not in favour of the voters. The 11 upazilas where the local wings of the BNP had declared hartal were the ones that seemed chaotic.
The Chief Election Commissioner's (CEC) declaration that the local election was a non-partisan one was, perhaps, a big contradiction as we saw how actively the political parties had
participated by nominating their candidates with a festive mood. The CEC’s comment about being indifferent towards election results and doing nothing other than holding elections sounded as if the Commission had no other duties. In fact, the EC's main job is to ensure acceptable elections by making sure that all parties participate. It is supposed to function as a constitutional establishment.
As far as the election results are concerned, it is evident that it represents BNP's sequential victory over its arch rival AL. Beginning with the may-oral elections until the last upazila elections, it's BNP that has been taking the upper hand. The results from the recently concluded elections have a significance that should be noted with importance. There was a popular perception that BNP has been dismantled, disorganised and demoralised; the results have, however, proved it to be wrong. BNP was neither outwitted nor manoeuvred into obliteration. From some of the speeches delivered by the ruling party members, it appeared as if BNP didn't exist at all. And we now see that BNP is still more popular than AL when it comes to local elections.
The disturbing fact is that candidates backed by Jamaat-e-Islami, a key ally of the BNP- led alliance, won 12 chairman posts. Because of all the violence committed by Jamaat, we had not expected such performance by the Islamist party. Another point is that both the parties had to make hectic efforts to select single candidate from their respective sides.
The recently held elections have some implications that are not positive in some cases. For instance, from the nature and outcome of the elections it cannot be said that future elections at the national level will be all-inclusive in nature. Then again, local elections are not indicative of a credible national poll in the future.
In the end I would say that, with the 15th Amendment in effect, a change in governance by holding free, fair and credible elections is not possible. I think some fundamental changes in the 15th Amendment - regarding the election time government - are needed with the help of another amendment. And the EC must exercise its authorities while behaving more responsibly.
The writer Is Secretary of Shujan, Citizens for
Good Governance.