Elections without Awami League won’t be unacceptable : Badiul Alam

Badiul Alam Majumdar, secretary of ‘Citizens for Good Governance’ (SHUJAN), has said that elections will “not be unacceptable” without Awami League’s participation.

Awami League has completely destroyed the electoral system in this country by conducting “dummy, one-sided and midnight” elections, he said.

Majumdar, also head of the Commission for Electoral System Reforms, made these remarks on Saturday while speaking at the shadow parliament debate competition organised by the Debate for Democracy at the FDC Auditorium, in the capital.

Chairman of Debate for Democracy Hasan Ahmed Chowdhury Kiran presided over the event.

Those involved in the destruction of the electoral system should be brought to justice, Majumdar added.

“In the last three parliamentary elections, almost everyone connected with the election including election commission, police, administration, returning officers, polling officers were involved in criminal activities,” he said.

“The election commission has committed a clear violation of the constitution by partisanship of the electoral system under various pretexts,” the SHUJAN secretary further stated.

The EC had shown irresponsibility regarding the planned attack on BNP’s Naya Paltan rally on 28 October to keep the party out of the elections. EC failed to prepare a level playing field for elections.

So, the issue of trial of all the persons accused of election crimes should be seriously considered.

The current government is not a caretaker government. The caretaker government was the routine government. The interim government is struggling to clear the mess of the last 15/16 years.

“Even then, delaying national elections could erode public confidence in the interim government,” he believed.

In his speech, Hasan Ahmed Chowdhury Kiran said, the people of this country have not forgotten how the voting of the day took place at night.

“Votes were cast in the name of dead people; 100pc votes were cast somewhere.”

“Journalists were prohibited from entering the polling stations. Although 8 to 10 per cent of votes were counted, the number of votes was increased to 40 to 45 per cent,” he added.

In the debate competition, Dhaka International University won by defeating Jagannath University.