Jatiya Party's Mostafa wins landslide in Rangpur City mayor election

The Jatiya Party has thrashed its powerful ally Awami League with a landslide mandate in the mayoral election to party Chairman HM Ershad’s stronghold Rangpur City.

Moinul Hoque Chowdhury Masum Billah and Shahzada Mia Azadbdnews24.com
Published : 21 Dec 2017, 02:46 PM
Updated : 21 Dec 2017, 08:53 PM

Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa won 160,489 votes with party polls logo ‘plough’ in the election to the northern city on Thursday.

His nearest rival the Awami League’s Sharfuddin Ahmed Jhantu, the outgoing mayor who ran with ‘boat’ logo, finished a distant second with 62,400 votes - a huge 98,089 votes fewer than Mostafa.

The BNP’s Kawsar Zaman Babla came out a disappointing third, bagging only 35,136 votes for 'paddy sheaf'.

Returning Officer Subhash Chandra Sarker announced the results late in the night from the control room set up in the city’s Police Community Hall.

He said 292,723 out of around 400,000 voters cast their ballots, taking the turnout to around 74.3 percent.

In his immediate reactions to the victory, mayor-elect Mostafa told bdnews24.com he is dedicating the win to the city dwellers.

“I am and I will be by the side of the people of Rangpur as I had been during my tenure,” the former Upazila Parishad chairman said.

Jhantu, speaking to bdnews24.com, said, “I have nothing to say here. The election was fair. I have accepted the people’s verdict.”

Earlier, in the beginning of the counting of votes, Babla announced ‘boycott’.

“I don’t accept this vote. I am boycotting it,” he said.

Besides the seven mayoral candidates, 211 candidates ran for 33 posts of general ward councillors while 65 fought for posts of councillors in 11 reserved wards.

The city has a total 393,894 voters - 196,256 male and 197,638 female.

Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa. File Photo

Sharfuddin Ahmed Jhantu. Photo via Facebook

The voting ended at 4pm, with no reports of violence. The voters praised the balloting as ‘unprecedentedly peaceful’.

Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda said at a news briefing in Dhaka they were ‘pleased’ as the voting was ‘fair and festive’.

The Awami League and Jatiya Party also expressed their ‘satisfaction’, but the BNP alleged the two allies ‘engineered the election as part of a bigger conspiracy’.

The Mostafa-Jhantu-Babla trio were the candidates backed by their parties in the first election to Rangpur in 2012 after it became a city corporation.

The election to the local government body was held without direct involvement of any political party that year.

After the boycott by Babla, former Awami League MP Jhantu became first city mayor by defeating Mostafa with a margin of 28,000 votes in the 2012 election.

This time, the political parties directly contested in the mayoral election by nominating candidates and Jhantu, who had worked also as mayor of Rangpur municipality, found himself again pitted against Mostafa.

Jhantu highlighted the Awami League government’s development work in his campaign. He expected the residents of the city to keep faith in him to maintain continuance of development.

Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad casts his ballot at Tozammel Hossain Memrial Shishumangal Govt Primary School centre at the election to Rangpur City Corporation on Thursday.

Mostafa, President of the Jatiya Party’s Rangpur metropolitan unit, banked on party chief Ershad’s image to get him across the line.

“Ershad and plough are synonymous. The city is a stronghold of Ershad. There will be a landslide in favour of plough,” he had said earlier.

Despite his ouster as a military dictator nearly three decades ago, Ershad has remained popular in the Rangpur region. 

He could not take part in Mostafa’s campaign as he is also the prime minister’s special envoy now. But he travelled to the city a few days before the voting and cast his vote on Thursday morning.

He had earlier said, “Considering our condition in Rangpur, we will win a landslide.”

He had also said the party would start working for the next parliamentary election after the Rangpur polls.

Election observers and politicians kept an eye on the Rangpur balloting, despite it being a local government election, for various reasons.

Many termed the election ‘an acid test’ for the Election Commission as it took place a year before the next parliamentary election.   

Abdul Alim, Director, Election Working Group or EWG, a platform of organisations of election observers, said the election by the end of the year is important for the government, EC and the parties.

He said the current EC made a good start with Comilla City Corporation election and hoped it would continue to do so in Rangpur.

“If the election remains fair, if the people can return home after casting vote without hindrances, they will get a positive message about the next election,” he said.

The EC thinks it has come up trumps in the test.

“We promised you that an ideal election will be held. The voting has been held amid festivity and it has been an ideal one,” Election Commissioner Md Rafiqul Islam told the media after the voting ended.

The Awami League has brushed off the allegation of ‘election engineering’ brought by the BNP but conceded the polls halfway through the counting with Mostafa already securing a big lead.

The ruling party’s General Secretary Obaidul Quader termed the defeat as ‘victory of democracy and also a political victory of his party’.

He also said the Rangpur election was a ‘message for the BNP’, which has been demanding nonpartisan polls-time government for the next parliamentary elections.