Development never alternative to democracy: Mahbub Talukdar
Election commissioner Mahbub Talukdar on Monday said at present development is getting preference and lawmakers are more interested in development than the formulation of law but development is never an alternative system to democracy.
He made the remarks at the last press conference of his tenure at the election commission office in Dhaka on Monday.
Earlier, chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda and other commissioners held their last press conference that Mahbub Talukdar skipped. He briefed the newspersons in front of his office later.
Like the previous time, Mahbub Talukdar on Monday read out a written statement titled ‘My speech’.
He said it is unnecessary to talk about human rights in Bangladesh. There are no human rights, no human dignity and these do not exist when there is no democracy.
The preconditions of democracy must be fulfilled to become a respectful state in the world. Voting rights and human rights are two sides of a coin and the desire of democracy origins from it, he added.
Mahbub Talukdar said the union parishad (UP) polls have ended recently with this election commission ending its tenure.
He said, “This UP polls has clearly pointed out that elections were not held in a democratic manner, and the corpse of democracy lies abandoned. Who would take the responsibility for the funeral rites of this corpse?”
“Though it is metaphoric, it is true. Such anarchy across the country in the name of election was never desired. This election has given violence a permanent shape at the grassroots. On the other hand, a question remains whether winning uncontested can be called an election ,” he added.
Making a self-assessment, Mahbub Talukdar said, “The big weakness of the election commission is that the commission takes action rarely on the allegations of discrepancies, biasedness, fraud and etc. made by the victims against the people related to elections.”
“The written allegations are not settled properly either. Most of the complaints filed were not taken into cognizance, and in many cases, complaint is not filed either. Some exceptions have been noticed at the end of our tenure during the last several months,” he added.
Mahbub Talukdar also spoke about the comments he had made many times and its reaction. He said, “What I have said about the election over the past five years, I do not think it has yielded any results.”
“I have previously said a law on the formation of election commission formation is a must, but if law is not acceptable to all political parties, crisis will not be resolved. To date, there is no sign of the opposition parties participating in the next parliament election and that will intensify the crisis. As an optimist, I want to see solution to all the crises,” he added.
Mahbub Talukdar thinks it is essential to reflect people’s opinion in the election. He said, “Reflection of people’s opinion is very much absent everywhere from union parishad election to parliamentary election. Money clearly plays role here and businesspersons are slowly taking over the politics.”
“My question is will lawmakers not turn into lawyers in future? Reform is necessary in electoral process to remove the obstacles in order to hold free, fair and credible election. For that, it can be necessary to change to constitution, and rules and regulations,” he added.
Replying to the query on why holding the press conference separately, Mahbub Talukdar said, “There is no special reason. I have been speaking freely here. It might not be possible there.”