Admin officials blame police for irregularities in 3 controversial national elections

Officials of administration have blamed the police for holding the last three parliamentary elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024 in a controversial manner.

The electoral reform commission organised a meeting with current and former administration officials who carried out their duties as returning officers, assistant returning officers and other election related officers during those three national elections.

The meeting, joined by 30 officials including senior officials of the current administration, was held at the Jatiya Sangsad (national parliament) on Monday.

The reform commission led by Badiul Alam Majumder has started exchanging views with stakeholders to prepare proposals for electoral reform. The commission is also reviewing the last three general elections. Yesterday’s meeting was part of that process.

The general election in 2014 was marred by a boycott of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and majority of parties where most of the seats were won by the Bangladesh Awami League “uncontested”.

All registered parties contested the next general election in 2018 but the ballots were allegedly stuffed in the night before the voting day, hence the election was dubbed as “night-time voting”.

The last parliamentary election (12th) on 7 January got the epithet of “dummy election” as most of the contestants were leaders of Awami League. This election too was boycotted by the BNP and many other parties.

The then Dhaka and Chattogram divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners were returning officers and upazila nirbahi officers (UNO) were mostly assistant returning officers. The commission will also hold meetings with law enforcement officials who were on duty during these three elections.

Sources said the meeting with the admin officials was conducted mainly to understand how irregularities took place in those elections, why the officials got involved with the process and how to avert recurrence of such incidents.

However, the administration officials put all the blame on the police and shunned their own failures. They maintained that the police officers were in charge of security in the polling stations and hence all the wrongdoings took place under their aegis.

The administration officials also stated that the police members at that time would not take any directives from them and if issued any, they would have asked the admin officials to inform police headquarters.

On the other hand, grassroot officials had to comply with all directives of its top officials. Field level administration officials were mostly helpless but there was some negligence of the officials.

Prothom Alo contacted five high level officials of the current administration of police about the allegation that police are mainly to blame for the electoral irregularities. None of them made any comments.

Former inspector general of police (IGP) Mohammad Nurul Huda told Prothom Alo it is true that police have responsibilities but to put the main blame on the police is an exaggeration. The role of returning officers and presiding officers is to be questioned to determine electoral irregularities. It is not appropriate to put all the blame squarely on the police.

After the meeting, Badiul Alam Majumder told journalists that the administration officials said they did not have much to do as Bangladesh virtually became a police state at that time. Police and law enforcers did not hear anything from the administration officials.

Some field level admin officials, however, raised questions about the role of some top officials, he stated. “They maintained they did not have any scope to protest and resigning was their only option.”

Badiul Alam Majumder further expressed that the administration officials opined that there is no alternative to a caretaker government to hold a fair election.

Cooperation among different forces will have to be increased for the next election and the election commission will have to take a stricter stance, he added.

Mir Nadia Nivin, a member of electoral reform commission, said the meeting discussed scrutinising the affidavits submitted by the candidates before election. The admin officials said affidavits can be scrutinised more with help from NBR and Bangladesh Bank.