GCC polls: EWG finds faults at 46% centres
Almost half of the polling centres saw irregularities during the Gazipur City Corporation election held last Tuesday, Election Working Group said today.
Speaking at a press briefing held on the election that saw ruling Awami League’s candidate win by a landslide margin ahead of the national election, the election monitoring group said it found irregularities at 46.5 per cent of the polling centres in the city.
The irregularities they found include ballot stuffing, campaigning within 400 yards of polling centres, presence of unauthorised persons in the polling booths, incidents of violence, biased position of the law enforcers, and bar on voters to cast votes.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Specific irregularities were found at 46.5 per cent centres, said Dr Md Abdul Alim, director of Election Working Group. “61.9 per cent votes were cast in the election.”
The EWG is a non-partisan network of 28 leading civil society organisations in Bangladesh that was formed in 2006 with the shared goal of enhancing the transparency and accountability of elections and other democratic processes in the country.
The election monitoring group came up with the observation by studying election at 129 centres among the total 425 centres across which the elections were held.
The group observed presence of Awami League polling agents at 96.9 per cent of the centres and BNP polling agents at 81.4 per cent of centers they observed at the beginning of the polls.
However, they acknowledged that they did not monitor how many polling agents were present throughout the day.
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