Quality of by-polls falls farther from natl. polls: EC

Chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda said on Thursday that the United States should learn about the election process from Bangladesh.

He was speaking in reference to the timely announcement of election result.

‘America cannot complete vote counting in four-five days. We do it through electronic voting machines taking between four-five and 10 minutes to declare the  result at any given centre. They [United States] should learn from us,’ Huda said after casting his vote at IES School and College polling centre in Dhaka-18 constituency by-elections.

‘America does not have it. In their 250 years of democratic experience they could not accomplish it. They do not have any central election commission. It happens at county levels, in 13,000 counties, according to their law,’ he said.

The CEC, however, pointed out that Bangladesh’s Election Commission, public and journalists have also have lessons to learn from the US.

‘America has a culture of holding elections that goes back 150 years. We have also lessons to learn from the USA and Europe,’ he said.

The CEC was referring to the recently held presidential election of the United States, where several states took three to four days to complete vote counting.

Election commissioner Mahbub Talukdar, however, was critical of the recently concluded by-elections in the country.

He said on Thursday that the quality of the by-elections had deteriorated since the 11th parliamentary polls held on December 30, 2018.

Mahbub made the observation at a press conference at his office after visiting nearly 70 polling booths at 14 polling centres at Nikunja, Khilkhet, and Uttara during the by-polls to Dhaka-18 parliamentary constituency.

‘After visiting the polling stations, my observation is that the election was held totally in a non-participatory manner,’ he said.

Mahbub Talukdar said that he did not find polling agents of the opposition candidates in most of the polling centres between 9:00am to 12:00pm.

‘I have seen posters, placards, and billboards of a particular political party though the law doesn’t permit those,’ he said, adding that he did not consider any election as a means of winning a seat by a candidate or a party, he saw it as an integral part of the steps towards democracy.

‘Without holding of free, fair, neutral, participatory, and acceptable elections, the process of handing over of power will never be set in motion,’ he said.

Unrest, social problems, and people’s frustrations were on the rise in the country in the absence of fair and credible elections, he said, adding that he demanded reforms in the electoral system otherwise the nation would move towards an uncertain future.

Scoffing at the CEC’s remark, commissioner Talukdar said that now US president Donald Trump would say, ‘I lost the polls as I am not taking lessons from Bangladesh,’