Notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the EC for credible and peaceful election, the Comilla city corporation poll ended amidst chaos, commotion, and unexpected drama.
According to the declared results of the mayoral contest, the Awami League nominated candidate Mr Arfanul Haque defeated the outgoing Mayor Mr Monirul Haque by a margin of only 343 votes.
Unfortunately, besides Monirul Haque, there are other losing parties in the Comilla city corporation election.
In our opinion, the Election Commission was a major loser in this election. So was the EVM.
In addition, the ruling party did not fare well in the Comilla election.
Enforcing the law
First, the EC failed to demonstrate its ability to enforce the existing legal framework in this election.
On June 8, the EC, under Section 22 of the City Corporation Election Code of Conduct, requested Mr Bahauddin Bahar, “a very important person who receives government benefits,” to leave Comilla city as he was “cleverly engaging in election campaign,” which the Hon’ble MP ignored.
To our knowledge, this has never happened before.
Sections 31 and 32 provide for penalties for violating the Code of Conduct -- such as jail sentence and fines, and even cancellation of candidatures -- but the EC did not enforce them, although it did not hesitate to take stern action against smaller fries.
More seriously, the Hon'ble CEC claimed that even if an MP violates the Code of Conduct in such a way, the EC could do nothing about it.
Even more surprisingly, after the election, the CEC is on record as stating: “We cannot and did not ask the member of parliament to leave the area. So he did not break anything. We have not failed either.”
Such inconsistent statements and failure to enforce the law not only reflect the apparent surrender of an important constitutional body to an MP, they also appear to represent a violation of their oath of office to faithfully discharge the duties according to law.
Counting the votes
Apart from this, eyebrows have been raised about the results of the Comilla city corporation election because of the contradictory statements of the EC officials.
According to media reports, after the declaration of the results of 101 centres, Monirul Haque was leading by 629 votes.
However, this is where accounts begin to diverge.
According to the returning officer, the declaration of the results was then stopped for 45 minutes due to delays in getting results from the four remaining centres.
But according to the EC, there was an interruption of only 15-20 minutes in the declaration of the results -- and the reason given was different.
The CEC claimed that the returning officer “went to the washroom to respond to nature's call ... and in those five minutes all the votes have changed, it is by no means possible.”
Another commissioner said: ‘After the declaration of the results of 101 centres, the atmosphere became too difficult for announcing the results. At the time, the returning officer became concerned about the safety of the result sheets and the laptop.”
Thus, whereas the returning officer claimed that the declaration of the results was halted due to delays in getting results from four centres, the EC cited security of the election materials and the nature's call of the returning officer as the reasons.
Furthermore, although the EC claimed that the delay was for 15-20 minutes, according to media reports and indeed the returning officer himself, the actual interruption was for 45 minutes.
Such contradictory statements are not helpful and do not inspire confidence.
EVM woes
Another major reason for dissatisfaction with the polls was the delay of about four hours in getting the results of the four centres, which reversed the results.
The use of EVMs was supposed to help get the results immediately after the end of the polling. Therefore, naturally questions have arisen as to why the results of these centres reached the returning officer so late.
The results of these four centres would not have caused any controversy if the candidate who was leading by 629 votes, based on the results of 101 centers, had not lost by 343 votes at the end.
As it is, the turnaround of almost a thousand votes will naturally invite scrutiny and skepticism.
Voter turnout
Furthermore, the Comilla election results once again suggest that biometrics-based EVMs depress either voter turnout or ability to vote.
It may be recalled that in 294 constituencies where paper ballots were used in the last national election, the turnout rate was over 80%, whereas in the six constituencies where EVMs were used, the turnout rate was only 51.5% -- a difference of almost 30%.
The use of EVMs has also appeared to have reduced the turnout rate in the Comilla election.
In 2012, when a different model of EVM was used, the turnout rate was 75%, while in the 2017 election using paper ballots, the turnout rate was 64%.
This year it was 57%.
Paper trail
Another problem of our EVM is its technical weakness, which can potentially be exploited for digital manipulation.
The EVM we use does not have Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), so the results declared by the EC cannot be recounted or audited.
In addition, election results can be changed by the presiding/polling officers using their authority to override the EVM.
According to a BBC report, in the last national election, the presiding/polling officers were given the authority to override EVMs by 25%.
In short, the dependability of our EVMs largely depends on the credibility of the man behind the machine.
It may be noted that the results of the last Chittagong city corporation election were published at least twice, which is quite irregular.
It was due to these weaknesses that the late Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, as the chairman of the technical advisory committee constituted by the EC, did not sign the recommendation to purchase the current model of EVM.
Competing claims
After the election results were declared, Monirul Haque claimed that he was the victim of manipulation.
But in the absence of the VVPAT in the EVM, there is no way to recount the votes to prove the allegations one way or the other.
It may be noted that due to this weakness, the EC of India was directed by the Supreme Court to attach VVPAT to their EVMs.
It is of course very possible that Arfanul Haque won the election fair and square.
But he too can be termed a loser as the irregularities mentioned above have cast a shadow over what may have been a perfectly legitimate victory for him.
Finally, in my estimation, this was a missed opportunity for the ruling AL.
The Comilla City Corporation elections were a chance to reassure the public as to the health of our elections.
Unfortunately, this did not happen.
As a result, the outgoing mayor was not the only losing party in Comilla.
Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar is Secretary, SHUJAN: Citizens for Good Governance.