A tenure defined by voter apathy
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Echoing his views, Mahbub Talukdar, one of the immediate past election commissioners, said, “An aversion to elections has appeared in people’s mind, and it is dragging democracy down on the verge of its death.”
Talking to The Daily Star, several voters too talked about their apathy towards casting votes.
“We see candidates backed by the ruling party win every time. So, what’s the point in casting my vote?” one of them asked, wishing not to be named.
Eight out of 15 people this newspaper reached in Dhaka, Sirajganj and Narsingdi districts said they did not vote in local government elections in their areas.
The five-year tenure of the EC, led by KM Nurul Huda, expired on February 14. Currently, a search committee is working to recommend names to the president for appointing the chief election commissioner and other commissioners for the next five years.
EC data shows the turnout in the 2019 staggered upazila parishad polls under the Nurul Huda-led commission fell by 21 percent compared to the upazila polls held by the Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad-led commission in 2014.
Voters’ presence fell by almost nine percent in the municipality elections and by 4.33 percent in the union polls, the data shows.
Under the Nurul Huda commission, 492 out of 4,850 chairman candidates in upazilas, municipalities and union parishads across the country were elected uncontested, without a single vote being cast. The same happened with the mayor election in Mymensingh city.
All the uncontested winners, except for three, were candidates of the ruling Awami League, according to the data.
Immediately after assuming office in February 2017, the Nurul Huda-led commission earned praises for holding elections to the Cumilla City Corporation. It was also lauded for the Narayanganj city polls held towards the end of its term.
But it came under fire for its role in other local body polls marred by irregularities and violence.
At least 101 people were killed and several hundred others injured in violence centring the staggered union parishad polls held recently.
The BNP and several other political parties boycotted the upazila and union elections, saying no free and fair election was possible under the EC.
M Sakhawat Hussain, a former election commissioner, said the EC should have taken steps to hold discussions with the parties that refrained from joining the elections.
“They said they couldn’t do anything if anyone does not participate in polls … this is an old tactic to avoid responsibility,” he said.
The Nurul Huda commission held the staggered upazila polls in 2019, municipality elections from December 2020 to March last year, and union parishad polls from June last year to this February.
The data from the EC shows the average turnout in the union parishad elections was 71.92 percent, down from 76.25 percent in 2016.
The average turnout in the polls to the 230 municipalities came down to 65 percent from 74 percent in 2015.
In the upazila parishad, the turnout was 40.31 percent, from 61.23 percent in 2014.
Similar trends could be found in the city corporation elections held at different times in the last five years. The polls to Dhaka, Cumilla, Rangpur, Gazipur, Khulna, Sylhet, Chattogram, and Narayanganj city corporations witnessed a fall in the turnout.
However, polls to Rajshahi and Barishal cities witnessed a rise in the turnout.
Sharmeen Murshid, chief executive officer of local election observer group Brotee, said, “The quality of conducting elections has been deteriorating and so has been the voters’ participation [in the polls].”
Election irregularities and violence are directly associated with the decreasing participation of voters, he said.
“As the Election Commission did not take responsibility for the two, many voters have lost faith in it,” he also said.
Talking to this correspondent before the end of his tenure as a commissioner, Rafiqul Islam said the voter turnout dropped as many political parties, including the BNP, did not contest the polls. “The elections became less competitive as many diehard BNP supporters refrained from voting.”
WINNING ALL TOO EASY
According to EC data, a record number of candidates were elected uncontested in the local government elections during the tenure of the Nurul Huda-led commission.
Chairman candidates got elected unopposed in 369 unions. The number was 207 in the 2016 UP polls.
No chairman candidate was elected unopposed during the five phases of the upazila elections in 2014, but the number shot up to 114 in 2019.
Seven municipalities chairman candidates were elected unopposed in 2015 while nine in the recent elections.
Sharmeen Murshid said almost all of the candidates belonged to the ruling party, which indicates that “power and money play a big role in those polls”.