EC unbothered about low voter turnout

Election Commission Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed today said, the commission prefers free, fair and peaceful voting against the attendance of voters.

“Voter percentage doesn’t matter. We have no headache over this issue,” he said after the third phase of upazila parishad election was complete today.

“Rather, we are more concerned about holding a free, fair and peaceful election,” he said at the press briefing held at the commission’s Agargaon office.

Responding to a query on low turnout of voters, Helal Uddin said many political parties did not participate in the election and rather discouraged people from voting.

On the note of acceptability of the election with such low turnout, he said that there is no legal parameter indicating justification of an election on the percentage of voters.

The turnout of vote in the first phase of the upazila parishad election was 43 percent while 41 percent was in the second phage, Helal Uddin said.

“And, we hope that the turnout of voters in the third phage election may be 40 to 45 percent,” the Election Commission secretary said.

He said, voting at 14 centers was suspended on allegation of irregularities while the commission withdrew an additional superintendent of police in Kotia and an officer-in-charge of a police station for their alleged involvement in irregularities.

“We will take legal step if we find more people are involved in the irregularities through investigation,” he said.