Former caretaker government adviser Dr Akbar Ali Khan has said that low voter turnout for the two Dhaka City Corporation elections was nothing less than ‘farcical’. For their part, other civil society members are blaming the electoral system for the low turnout.
He made this statement on Saturday at the inaugural ceremony of Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik's (Shujan) 7th National Council-2020 held at the Institute of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh (IDEB).
Akbar Ali Khan said: “The political agenda should be a one-point mandate that ultimately brings people together, but the last voting has shown that people have lost their trust in leaders.”
The former caretaker government adviser added that while voter turnout and voting percentage had been more than 80% in last national election, the figure was 30% in the recently held two city corporation elections, which is absolutely ridiculous.
According to the election commission, the percentage of voters at DSCC polls was 29% and DNCC was 25.32 % in two city polls, which was held on February 1.
However, he also advised civil society to stay away from politics, adding that many doubts had been raised about the role of civil society.
Akbar Ali Khan urged the election commission (EC) to take proper measures to make sure that voter turnout was more than 95%.
He also said the people of the country were still unsure about the use of electronic voting machines (EVM) in the election and so it is the duty of the EC to make sure that the people of the country are comfortable while using EVMs.
Professor Rehman Subhan said: “Politicians need to find out the reasons as to why people are not coming to give votes.”
Professor Rehman also said that he wanted to see transparency and good governance in the country. He added that empowering marginalized men and women in the country’s politics would definitely make a difference in the country.
At the conference, former caretaker government adviser M Hafiz Uddin Khan termed the electoral system a complete failure, adding that the election system had been completely ruined.
“There are doubts whether from now on fair and neutral elections can be held in this country in future,” added Hafiz.
Shujan's Secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar said that if elections were not acceptable, the democratic system became inactive. He added that the election system was now vulnerable, which indicated that the chances of a peaceful change of power had been closed for good.
Former Chief Election Commissioner Abu Hena said there had been many reforms in the electoral system, but nothing had changed so far.
At the conference, Shujan proposed 20 points to the government on a reform of the country’s politics, including changes in the political culture, electoral system, effective national assembly, independent judiciary system, media freedom, women empowerment and many more.
