Violence and irregularities in the third phase of municipality polls

As the third phase of municipality polls was held on January 30, reports of violent clashes and irregularities again made news headlines. Elections to 62 municipalities in 36 districts were held in the third phase. And like the previous two phases of elections, this phase was also marred by clashes, ballot box stuffing and ballot snatching, driving polling agents out of voting centres and beating them up, and ruling party men occupying polling centres, as reported by this daily. The situation turned so chaotic in some polling centres that many opposition candidates boycotted the election, bringing complaints of election rigging against ruling party candidates.

While our correspondents were visiting the polling centres in Bogura, they found hundreds of ruling party leaders and activists, wearing "green caps" and the badges of the AL candidate, patrolling the polling centres and the surrounding areas and preventing opposition supporters from entering the station.

It is worrying to see how violence and irregularities have become a norm in our elections, despite repeated assurances from the Election Commission of holding fair and violence-free elections. Voters have already lost their faith in the election process and have also started questioning the role of the EC. And if things continue to go on like this in the next two phases of the municipality polls, the Election Commission will definitely lose its credibility.

The low voter turnout in the recently held Chattogram City Corporations polls, also marred by violence, was a reflection of people's attitudes towards elections. However, there was some form of enthusiasm among voters about the municipality polls as voter turnout was not bad in the second phase. But we can say for sure that voter turnout will decrease in the next phases if violence and irregularities by the ruling party men cannot be checked.

Before the elections, the Election Commission informed us that they took all the preparations to hold the third phase polls peacefully and prevent any kind of violence. The spokesperson of EC also told us that they have taken a lesson from the CCC polls. But in reality, they were not prepared to stop violence and election rigging. Although a few polling officers were withdrawn over negligence of their duties and an upazila-level AL leader was arrested on charges of capturing a polling station and creating chaos in the election in Bhuiyanpur, Tangail, no more steps were taken by the authorities concerned to stop chaos in the polling centres.

We urge the EC to investigate the allegations of election rigging by the opposition candidates and take steps against those who violated the electoral rules. And those who created chaos and resorted to violence to intimidate the voters should be arrested by the police and punished according to the law. These steps should be taken before the fourth phase of municipality elections is held so that people can find some form of enthusiasm in going to the polling centres and casting their precious votes.