Vote counting starts after polls end in 234 municipalities amid reports of sporadic clashes, abuses

Bangladesh’s first local government elections held on party lines have ended amid reports of sporadic clashes and allegations of ballot-stuffing at polling stations.

Election officials have started counting the ballots after voting ended in over 3,000 voting centres.
 
Voting in 234 municipalities kicked off at 8am and ended at 4pm amid heightened security. 
 
The Election Commission has suspended the polls for Narsingdhi’s Madhabdi Municipality, which means officials at 233 municipalities are now busy counting the ballots. 
 
Clashes between supporters of the candidates and ballot-stuffing have taken place despite the Election Commission’s additional security measures for centres marked as ‘sensitive’.

Security forces at several voting centres had to fire in the air to control the situation.

Officials at 17 polling stations suspended the voting due to clashes and malpractices.

But the Election Commission was satisfied with the overall scenario.

“We are satisfied, but it could have been better. There’s no way to deny that incidents of attack and clashes occurred at some places,” Election Commissioner Md Abu Hafiz told bdnews24.com

The EC is yet to come up with the statistics of voter turnout, but it seemed confident about a high one.

“It will be high. The turnout of female voters were good. We were not concerned about that; our priority was the law and order situation,” said Hafiz.

During the polls on Wednesday, the EC had to instruct police to suspend five of its officers in two districts on charges of facilitating malpractices.

Polls began at 234 municipalities at 8am, but an incident of voting centre occupation and stuffing stamped ballots in boxes was reported at a centre in Narsinghdi’s Madhabdi.

Voting was suspended at the centre, which was rocked by explosions later in the presence of the Narsinghdi deputy commissioner and SP.

The bombings left a few injured, including an assistant returning officer.

The Election Commission suspended the polls for Madhabdi and said they will announce a date later for voting.

Reports of clashes came in from at least 20 municipalities during the elections.

At Chittagong’s Satkania, a man died during a clash between two councillor aspirants' supporters, which took place within a kilometre of a voting centre.

Clashes and ballot-stuffing led voting to be suspended at 17 polling centres in 11 municipalities.

As many as 23 mayor candidates, including one nominated by the Awami League, quit the polls alleging malpractices like the capture of polling centre and stamping ballots.

The BNP, which had left the Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation polls before voting ended, did not opt for the same on Wednesday, but levelled heaps of allegations against the Awami League.

“The attempts to swing the result in favour of the ruling party candidates have become clear to the people ... The government is going ahead with its plot to hold a stage-managed election,” senior leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told the media after an hour of voting.

A BNP delegation led by the chairperson’s advisor Osman Farruq met Election Commissioner Md Shah Nawaz and alleged that 60 polling centres were taken over two and a half hours into voting.

The Awami League said the BNP was snatching away ballots fearing defeat.

“They know that the people will not vote for them. That is why they have resorted to snatching ballots,” Joint General Secretary Mahbub-Ul Alam Hanif told a media briefing.

The party’s election steering panel chief HT Imam described the polls as 'free and fair'.

He, however, lashed out at 'sporadic police excesses' in some parts of the country.

“Security personnel resorted to excesses and heavy-handedness in dealing with the Awami League activists at some places," he told the media after emerging from a meeting with election commissioners.

Heightened security measures were adopted for Wednesday’s voting after more than 50 incidents of clashes were reported from different parts of the country during campaigns.

Although Wednesday’s polls involved just 7.5 percent of the country’s total electorate, the two major political parties—the Awami League and the BNP— viewed it as a referendum on their agendas.

The BNP sees the outcome of the polls as a verdict on its demand for caretaker regimes to oversee national elections, while the Awami League hopes it will be an affirmation of its development programmes.