Ensuring violence-free local govt polls is challenging, says CEC Nasir

“As we were able to deliver a good national election, I hope we will also be able to handle the local government ones too, In Sha Allah,” he says

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) AMM Nasir Uddin spoke of a history of conflict and violence in Bangladesh’s local government elections, but says he does not want to see any bloodshed in the upcoming polls.

Nasir said 236 people died during the local government elections in 2016 and 103 in the union council elections in 2021, he said, citing several non-governmental organisations and media outlets at an event in Dhaka on Thursday.

“During Ershad’s rule in the 1980s, there were many murders during local elections. Hospitals used to be filled with people injured in fights. This violence must stop. But stopping such violence has emerged as a major challenge,” he said,

“We want to hold local government elections free of bloodshed. We want them to be held beautifully.”

Preparations are underway for the elections for various positions in the local government's 4,581 union councils, 61 district councils, 495 Upazila councils, 330 municipalities, and 13 city corporations.

The plan is for elections to begin this year and to be held in stages. Nasir also called for the cooperation of political parties to organise free and fair elections.

Referring to the 13th parliamentary elections, he said: "I joined and said that I have the experience and courage to face challenges. I delivered that election by facing all the challenges with the cooperation of everyone."

The CEC wants the local government elections to be held in the same way.

He said, "Now the local government elections have emerged as a major challenge before us. There is a lot of work to do in the elections at different levels of local government, and everyone's cooperation is needed.

"There will be no shortage of efforts by the EC (Election Commission) to conduct fair elections. We will try our best. If we get everyone's cooperation, we will be able to hold good elections."

The EC will hold discussions with stakeholders ahead of the local elections, Nasir said: "We want everyone's cooperation to try and unite the nation. An awareness campaign will be conducted ahead of the vote. We will talk to stakeholders.

"We will try to unite everyone so that we can hold a beautiful local government election by avoiding conflict. In particular, we need the support of the political parties."

The CEC believes that it is not possible to hold a conflict-free election without the support of political parties.

He said, "As we were able to deliver a good national election, I hope we will also be able to handle the local government ones too, In Sha Allah. We have that confidence."

Nasir said that a beautiful election is not possible without the cooperation of the government. He said the support of government agencies will be needed.

“The Election Commission is neither for nor against anyone. We want to create a good environment for everyone, so they can cast their votes freely. The national elections have become our standard, the bottom line. We have to improve this.”

After the parliamentary elections under the interim government, non-partisan local elections will be held under the party government.

The CEC said, “We have seen that there are murders during every local government election. We will hold the elections with everyone’s cooperation so that these killings do not happen. That is the main goal – to ensure there is no bloodshed. This government is the representative of the people.

“This democratic government will want to have a clean, fair election. That will increase their acceptance. The election will be a challenge. We are making all-out preparations to face this challenge with everyone’s cooperation.”