No tough action in violence cases due to EC's loyalty to govt, AB Party to US team
The Amar Bangladesh Party, AB Party, has briefed the United States’ polls assessment team that there have been endless incidents of violence centering the national election here, but the Election Commission (EC) could not or was unwilling to take any tough action due to their loyalty to the government.
Referring to the current situation in Bangladesh, the party said law enforcement agencies and civil and military bureaucracy can hardly operate freely during an election under an "unelected political government".
The AB Party delegation met the joint election assessment team of the US International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on Tuesday, according to a press release.
The election assessment team arrived in Dhaka last week to observe pre and post election violence, including inter and intra-party violence, violence targeting women and other marginalised groups, online harassment and threats.
The team was represented by Geoffrey Macdonald, a senior advisor in the Asia Division at the IRI, Nenad Marinkovic, security and physical violence expert, and Ivylo Pentchev, an information environment analyst.
The AB Party delegation was led by Mojibur Rahman Monju, member secretary, Tajul Islam, an advocate of the Supreme Court and joint convenor, Asaduzzaman Fuaad, Zubair Ahmed Bhuiyan, barrister-at-law and joint member secretaries, Nasreen Sultana Mily, a barrister-at-law and in-charge of the AB Party's female wing.
Initially, the US assessment team was briefed about the AB Party, a new generation political platform which aspires to base their politics on problem solving through devising issue-based policies and programmes.
Then the discussion moved onto the forthcoming election and associated issues. The team was interested to know about the reasons for denial of electoral registration and updates on judicial review application outstanding at the High Court division of the Supreme Court.
The AB Party was consistent in their call for a non-partisan election time government to hold a free, fair, participatory and credible election which simply cannot take place under an incumbent who lacks legitimacy.
Referring to previous 11 elections, it said four were largely accepted as credible which were held under a neutral caretaker government when all the incumbents failed to have been re-elected.
The conversation then moved onto ongoing electoral violence across the country. The AB Party said online threats and intimidation are widespread and shared a number of real life incidents. It also expressed concern over recent detention of three activists in Rangpur city while distributing leaflets.
The AB Party also noted that women and members of ethnic minority communities feel more vulnerable during election campaigns. It becomes ever more difficult for anyone from a less-well-off background to make a choice or not to make any choice at all. Overall, a sense of total fear and intimidation captures the electoral environment.