Damning TIB report on three city elections not troubling EC

The Election Commission has said it is unflustered by the damning report of Transparency International, Bangladesh on the recent city elections since the corruption watchdog is was not a registered observer.

Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz told bdnews24.com on Tuesday: “TIB is not on the list of our registered observer agencies. We have no headache over their report.
 
He said: “We’re not thinking about this (report). We’ve nothing to react to.”
 
TIB made its observations on the Apr 28 elections to Dhaka North and South and Chittagong city corporations at a press conference on Monday.
 
In the report, it said the commission had failed to conduct the elections ‘impartially’ due to the weakness of its leadership.
 
It said widespread rigging had taken place in the voting and law enforcers’ role was questionable.
 
A day later, the agency’s Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman sent the observation report, recommendations, summary of its survey and its questionnaire and answers to the election commissioners through a special messenger.
 
He expressed TIB’s desire to sit with the commission to discuss the recommendations and other issues.
 
But Shah Nawaz suggested the commission was not interested in such discussion.
 
“It’s not a matter that I alone can decide. What all at the commission will say will happen,” he said.
 
A commissioner called TIB’s statement on the leadership weaknesses of the EC as ‘excesses’.
 
“What is TIB? None of them observed the elections. How did they collect the information?
 
“Who gave them the information on such huge (election) expenses? How authentic is the information they provided?” he asked, declining to be named.
 
Former chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda, now a member of the TIB trustee board, was present at the agency’s press conference.
 
The TIB in its report claimed that it spoke to a commission official before preparing the report, but the commissioner rejected the claim.