The Election Commission anticipates a poor voter turnout in the January 5 polls.
They fear that people may refrain from going to the polling centres to cast votes because of the hostile environment created by the major opposition alliance all over the country.
Since the Constitution was amended for the 15th time in 2011, when the caretaker government system was annulled, BNP has continued to assert that credible elections would not be possible under any partisan arrangement.
The commission also fears that the turnout of voters may be less than the controversial February 15, 1996 elections, EC officials said yesterday.
So far, a total of five national polls have been held under partisan governments: 1973, 1979, 1986, 1988 and 1996.
Among them, the 1988 and the 1996 elections are said to be the most controversial because the major opposition parties boycotted them.
In the sixth parliamentary elections held on February 15 in 1996, some 49 candidates of BNP were elected as MP uncontested. BNP won 279 seats out of 290. Elections to 10 parliamentary constituencies were not held because of unavoidable circumstances.
In 1996 polls, 26% votes were cast while in the ninth parliamentary polls in 2008, 87% votes were cast that set a record.
Awami League and Jatiya Party achieved 47% and 7.5% votes respectively while BNP achieved 32% votes in the polls.
Seeking anonymity, a deputy secretary of the EC told the Dhaka Tribune that this election season, the candidates did not provide voter slips to the voters in their respective zones which had been a usual scenario ahead of polls in the past years.
The commission has expressed concern over the matter upon receiving the field level reports, he said.
Some field level officials said generally the election candidates distribute the voter slips door to door in their respective areas that include the name of the voter, name of the polling centre and a voter number.
But this time, the candidates showed no interest in doing so. As a result more time may be needed for searching the voter number during the polls, said the officials.
In tomorrow’s polls 389 candidates from 12 registered political parties will be contesting.
As the main opposition BNP and some other parties are not taking part in the election, a total of 153 candidates have no competitors. Consequently out of 43,862,908 voters, 48,280,620 cannot exercise their franchises this time, shows the EC statistics.
A total of 91,213 polling booths will be set up inside 18,209 polling centres across the country for holding polls in 147 constituencies.
EC Secretary Muhammed Sadique said the commission would ensure maximum security for the voters.
