Dhaka city election to be competitive: CEC

Chief election commissioner, KM Nurul Huda, on Friday urged voters to exercise their franchise in Saturday’s Dhaka city election, which he hoped will be “competitive, free, fair and neutral”, reports UNB.

He said the candidates have been able to campaign freely without any obstacle.

“So, I think confidence have been created among the voters. I hope that tomorrow’s (Saturday) elections will be competitive, free, fair and neutral,” he told newsmen while visiting the distributions of election materials at Dhaka Residential Model College in the city.

Replaying to a question regarding trust on the election commission, he said, "It depends on the people. We didn’t conduct any biased election [in the past] nor will we do so in future.”

He observed that the EC never had the trust of all political parties in the past. The party in power and the opposition will have different views on the EC. “It’s become a political culture,” he said.

He urged political parties to come out of the “culture of mistrust”, adding that they have to observer how neutrally the EC is conducting election.

“I don’t think there’s security issue here [for the voters]. Voters come out and exercise their franchise whenever the election is competitive,” the CEC said.

Election materials, including EVMs, have been distributed for 2,467 polling stations in the two city corporations.

At a pre-election briefing at the Nirbachan Bhaban, the CEC ruled out the fear of irregularity using the EVMs.

He promised to arrange “transparent and neutral” elections.

Noting that he visited distribution of election materials in different areas and spoke to the returning officers, Huda said: “There’s no problem. The election materials have reached the polling stations…There’s no fear regarding the elections anywhere.”