Since the newly formed interim government has taken charge, emergence of an impartial democratic governance has become the sine qua non for restoration of public trust in the electoral system. Since August 5, in a significant overhaul of the local administration, the interim government dismissed 876 elected representatives nationwide. To fill these positions, administrators were appointed in 61 districts, 495 upazilas, and 330 municipalities, largely replacing those who had served under the previous Awami League (AL) government. In addition to the removal of seven previously appointed municipal administrators, 323 municipal mayors were also dismissed.

The administration is also being shaken up with at least five mid-ranking police officials, who were arbitrarily dismissed or sent into forced resignation during the tenure of AL, being reinstated. The chief justice, five justices, top police officials, and the central bank governor—all have gone into retirement, yet there has been no change in the bedrock of the country's democratic governance i.e., the Bangladesh Election Commission (EC).

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The alterations we need in our Election Commission

Questions have been raised about the current Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal and his colleagues, following the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government. Despite his overseeing the 2024 general election, widely criticised for irregularities and bias, the CEC continues to hold his position at a time when the growing national sentiment is that a new, impartial EC is essential to restore confidence in the electoral process.

Over the past 53 years, Bangladesh has struggled to build a strong electoral system. While elections overseen by caretaker governments since the transition to parliamentary democracy in 1991 were generally considered to be free, fair, and participative, those conducted under political administrations of the ruling AL often lacked credibility due to interference by the government. Same thing happened when the then ruling BNP tried to manipulate the infamous Magura by-polls in 1994.

The electoral system took a significant turn in 2011 when the Sheikh Hasina-led AL abolished the constitutional requirement for a caretaker government through the 15th amendment. This decision led to a boycott of the 2014 general election by BNP and other opposition parties which was marred by violence, voter suppression, and allegations of government crackdowns on opposition leaders. More than half of the seats i.e. 153 out of 300 were uncontested and won by the single ruling party candidates. From 2014 to 2024, the country's electoral landscape has been defined by a series of controversial elections with poor participation, political repression, and concerns over the state of democracy.

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Of the AL, for the AL, and by the AL

Similarly, under former CEC KM Nurul Huda, the 2018 election marked the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) which became a source of controversy with a turnout of 80 percent with the AL, in alliance with the Jatiya Party (JP), securing over 90 percent of the parliamentary seats. Observers reported significant irregularities, such as voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, and occupation of polling booths, raising serious doubts about the integrity of the electoral process and the role of the EC. In 2020, 42 prominent citizens called on the then President Abdul Hamid to establish a Supreme Judicial Council to investigate allegations of misconduct, including financial corruption, against the EC led by KM Nurul Huda.

In 2023, the EC's widely publicised dialogue with registered parties occurred with many expecting the EC to first enable the BNP to freely decide on participating. Instead, the EC considered its duty fulfilled by simply delivering an invitation to the BNP's empty, locked office. Additionally, TIB published a report on the 12th National Parliament Election criticising EC for failing to ensure fairness, transparency, and competitiveness.

The 2024 general election was widely seen as a repeat of previous polls, with an exceptionally low turnout of 27 percent, and the AL poised for another victory. These issues highlight ongoing concerns about the EC's ability to conduct credible elections, yet the EC seems mostly oblivious of its role in the flawed electoral processes. According to Articles 118(4) and 126 of the Constitution of Bangladesh, along with Article 4 of the Representation of the People Order, 1972, the EC is an independent constitutional body, accountable only to the constitution and relevant laws. Given this, it is crucial for the CEC and the EC led by him to uphold democratic principles.

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How do we describe the upcoming election?

On August 24, the CEC wrote a column for Samakal expressing concerns about the constitutional requirement for the EC to conduct general elections within 90 days, as mandated by Article 123(3)(b) of the constitution. He warned that failure to do so could be considered a grave offense under Article 7A, potentially punishable by death. However, he also acknowledged the impossibility of holding elections within this timeframe under current circumstances, likening the situation to "the sword of Damocles hanging over one's head." Given the complexity of the situation, looming crises, and the fact that elections overseen by the EC in the past 15 years have eroded public trust, he and his colleagues should have resigned immediately without waiting for either a call from the president or any other corner who they would have difficulty ignoring.

The interim government needs to rebuild electoral institutions starting with an independent election commission free from political influence. This is an opportunity to restore citizens' trust in elections by creating a sustainable, transparent electoral process that puts power back in the hands of the people. Hence, it is difficult to understand why the current CEC and his colleagues are not submitting resignations as opposed to being asked to do so. Do they really believe that any further election will be held under their stewardship? Or are the salary, benefits, perks and privileges they enjoy too good to be not enjoyed until shown the door?

Prof Syed Munir Khasru is chairman of The Institute for Policy, Advocacy, and Governance (IPAG), an international think tank. He can be reached via www.syedmunirkhasru.org.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said if he had been made the CEC of New Zealand or Britain, he could have finished the election by sitting on a chair sipping tea.

He said this while inaugurating the voters' list update programme-2022 at Savar in Dhaka today (May 20, 2022), reports our local correspondent.

"I told my colleagues that if I were the Chief Election Commissioner of New Zealand or Britain, I could have finished the election by sitting on a chair and sipping tea," he said.

"In many countries of the world, elections/voting rights are exercised, as you know, and I also know that no violence happened there. Everyone stands in queues and everyone goes and exercises their rights to vote," he added.

"I didn't have any kind of stress, and would not suffer from high blood pressure. But the situation in Bangladesh makes us stressed during the elections. We have to be careful," said the CEC.

"The Election Commission alone can never make an election a success. But here those who are employees of the Republic, such as police administration, and district administration have to play a very important role during the elections," he also said.

"Here, however, we have a big challenge. Exercising the voting right is the big challenge," he said.

"Yesterday I read a report of violence during elections in a newspaper. We want competition and a participatory election. But sometimes violence takes place in the vote. Chase and counter chases happened. A writer said that this is not our election crisis, it is our cultural crisis," he went on saying.

"How our culture has developed that we have to commit occurrence during elections. In many cases, this makes us sad. We need to get out of this exercise and maybe it will take some time," he added.

Md Humayun Kabir Khandker, EC secretary, also spoke at the event and called upon people, local government representatives, and administration to come forward for the cooperation of the staff engaged in the updating process of the voters' list.

The European Union will send an exploratory election monitoring mission to Bangladesh in July as the Election Commission has welcomed them in a written invitation.

EU Ambassador to Bangladesh Charles Whiteley confirmed the development to The Daily Star.

He said he was very happy about Bangladesh's stance of welcoming the international election observers.

This exploratory mission is the first of the three-stage election monitoring mission from the EU.

On April 23, we ran a report on how 100,500 electronic voting machines (EVMs), out of 150,000 total, worth Tk 3,825 crore, will soon be gutted as they "are no longer usable," according to an Election Commission official. These machines, with an official lifespan of 10 years, were bought in 2018 just before the election that year, at a cost of Tk 2.35 lakh each—11 times more expensive than the EVMs used in India. As guaranteed, the EVMs purchased by Bangladesh should have functioned at least until 2028.

But the EVMs next door have a different story. Right now, India is holding the biggest election ever in the world with 969 million registered voters. The elections began on April 19 and will be held in seven phases over a six-week period and across more than a million polling stations. The result will be announced on June 4. All of the nearly a billion voters will cast their ballots using the 5.5 million EVMs that are being used throughout this massive country.

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EVM neglect is EC's failure

So what explains the dramatically opposite trajectories in the use of EVMs between the two neighbouring countries? India, after achieving political consensus on the use of EVMs in 1998 and through many years of trial and error, reached 100 percent use of these machines in 2004 in all its constituencies. But why are we dumping our EVMs into the gutter less than six years after their purchase? By doing so, we are setting back—and we don't know for how long—any possibility of using EVMs in future polls, which is essential for the modernisation of our election process.

Why did the EVM experiment in Bangladesh fall on its face?

There is, of course, the overriding political atmosphere of suspicion and hatred, as well as a culture of never accepting what the other side does. But on the technical side, too, there were fundamental flaws in the EVM project formulation, evaluation, and monitoring that have led to the present disaster.

First, let us delve into the issue of why our EVMs should cost 11 times more than those used in India. It was said that ours were of higher technical capability and had features that others didn't. Voters never came to know what those special features were, but did the Election Commission (EC) know? If yes, did they carry out thorough technical evaluation before approving the machines?

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EVMs and a mind-reading election commissioner

One key feature of the Indian EVM is its paper trail, or the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). So, when a vote is cast, the machine prints out a slip containing the serial number, name, and symbol of the candidate, which is displayed for seven seconds and then automatically drops into a sealed box. This serves as a confirmation to the voter that the machine has correctly registered his/her vote and also acts as a printed record that can be used to verify voting in case there are questions or contestations. The VVPAT feature greatly helped India to gain public confidence in the EVM process, while its absence did the very opposite in our case. Why didn't our EC insist on having this feature?

Moreover, did the EC do its due diligence before accepting the EVMs, especially as it was costing 11 times higher than the comparable Indian ones?

There is also the question whether the EC did enough to gain public trust in EVM use. The prevailing suspicion that EVMs could be manipulated remains deeply etched in the public mind. The EC should have realised that casting a ballot is a precious right and an exercise of power by each voter, which one would be reluctant to relinquish to a machine unless s/he had full faith on its reliability. But did the EC do enough to gain that crucial public confidence? Why weren't more technical teams, IT specialists, and poll experts utilised to engage with general voters and remove the doubts that continue to gnaw at the public mind as to the dependability of these EVMs? There should have been far more public display regarding the workings of these machines as well as open debate about their capabilities.

Without such outreach to gain public confidence, the EC should not have proceeded to buy so many of these machines. There should have been many more pilot projects with smaller numbers of both voters and EVMs, and through such a process a breakthrough could perhaps have been achieved. If Indian voters could have been won over in favour of the EVMs, why not ours, too, where diversity is so much less?

Perhaps the most damaging and utterly absurd aspect of the EC's project was that there was no provision to store these EVMs when not in use. Can there be anything more ridiculous? When the first batch of 25,000 EVMs were delivered in 2018, the question should have immediately occurred to the EC as to where to store them. Without that crucial question being resolved, the EC ordered more of the machines and in the subsequent years—2019 and 2020—the whole lot of 150,000 EVMs were bought. So, to put it bluntly: EVMs were bought at 11 times the price they are next door and then, when not in use, they have literally been thrown into premises—such as schools, colleges and EC upazila offices—that are inadequate to store these technically sophisticated machines. Temperature, dust, and humidity control are the most essential preconditions for EVMs' preservation, and none of this was ensured. All this was done with the full knowledge that these machines would soon become unusable, as they have now become. The crudity of it all boggles the mind.

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How do we get the goons out of the EVM booths?

As a society under law, shouldn't we be able to hold some people responsible for such blatant waste of public money? Is it those who proposed the EVM project, those who evaluated it, or those who approved it? In a sense, all should be responsible. But in fact, nobody is. The way our administrative procedures are formulated prevents clearly identifying who should be held responsible in case of failure. This, coupled with the practice of never holding anyone responsible, has created a culture of spending public money without any regard for accountability. Every year, the media runs hundreds of stories about waste of public money but no accountability comes out of it. The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General publishes hundreds of well-researched reports annually, exposing cases of public money being squandered. But these reports ultimately gather dust. The fact that no official has ever been held responsible or punished—especially the senior ones—has created an environment of endorsing corruption. This also feeds into the present culture of impunity among the rich and powerful.

Shouldn't the EC hold its own investigation as to how the EVM disaster occurred, and what can be done to prevent such a failure in the future. With nearly a billion voters, India has achieved 100 percent usage of EVMs and we, with only 120 million voters, are abandoning it, with all the implications of continuing the controversies of ballot stuffing, midnight voting and the rest. The fiasco with the EVMs has created further doubt in the public mind as to the capabilities of our EC to hold free and fair elections in the near future.

Mahfuz Anam is editor and publisher of The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.