15-20% votes cast in first 4 hours of Upazila Parishad election, says EC

The voter turnout is expected to rise further as adverse weather eases, election officials say

The turnout in the first four hours of the first phase of the Upazila Parishad elections is around 15-20 percent due to rain and gusty winds in the 139 Upazilas going to the polls, says Election Commission Secretary Md Jahangir Alam.

The expected voter turnout was low until noon but it increased in the afternoon, the EC secretary said at a media briefing on the overall state of the polls at his office around 1pm on Wednesday.

Only one polling centre in Khagrachhari’s Lakshmichhari Upazila was closed. Other than a few isolated incidents outside polling centres, no major irregularities have been reported in the first phase of the elections, Alam said.

Voting opened at 8am on Wednesday in 139 Upazilas across the country. Electronic voting machines or EVMs were used for voting in 22 Upazilas, while others used traditional paper ballots.

The voting will continue until 4pm.

A law and order monitoring cell at the Election Commission office in Agargaon has been observing the voting situation centrally.

Initially, the EC received field-level information at 10 am and 12pm. The average turnout is different in each district. The initial rate has been determined based on the information uploaded by the presiding officers to the EC app. The exact rates will be announced later, the EC secretary said.

“Though it is not possible to figure out the exact voter turnout but based on regional information we have estimated that around 15-20 percent votes were cast till noon [in four hours]," he said.

When asked about the lower voter turnout compared to previous years, Alam said the rate was lower than expected from morning to noon as the sky has been cloudy since the morning, Char regions experienced rain and there was stormy weather at night and rain in the morning.

“The voter turnout usually ticks up from noon to 4pm in Bangladesh because people who work in the fields come to cast their ballots in the afternoon. We can give a complete picture of the turnout after the vote.”

Alongside the paper ballot, voting proceeded without any error in the EVMs, he said.

The EC secretary said no major disturbances or incidents occurred during the Upazila polls. The law enforcers have brought situations under control and taken strict actions in a couple of isolated incidents.

The voting was closed due to a disturbance outside the polling centre in Khagrachhari’s Lakshmichhari. A presiding officer was arrested at a polling centre in Bogura for illegally stamping ballots.

Despite these isolated incidents, there were no major issues, he said.

The Upazila executive officer in Mymensingh’s Iswarganj got in a road accident while returning from the poll centre. A centre in Madaripur also experienced issues, but they have not affected the vote.

• A total of 1,619 candidates are contesting the first phase of the Upazila Parishad election with 565 of them vying for the chairman posts, 619 for vice chairman and 435 for women vice chairman posts

• At least 28 of them, including 8 chairmen, 10 vice chairmen and 10 women vice chairmen were elected uncontested

• More than 31.4 million voters can cast their ballots at 81,804 polling booths in 11,556 voting centres in 139 Upazilas

• Among them, more than 16 million are male voters and 15.4 million are female voters, while 188 are third-gender voters.

The sixth Upazila Parishad election will be held in four phases.

The 12th national election on Jan 7, saw a 42 percent voter turnout.

In 2009, the third Upazila Parishad election saw a 67.69 percent turnout while the figure dropped to 61 percent in the fourth Upazila election in 2014. In 2019, the rate was around 41 percent in the fifth Upazila election.

Since the Upazila Parishad council was introduced in 1985, there were one-day votes in 1990 and 2009. But in 2014, the local government elections were held in six phases and the 2019 election in five phases.

The Upazila election is typically held within four months of the 12th parliamentary election. The Election Commission took ‘all necessary preparations’ to have a free and fair election this time, said Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal. They were trying their best to ‘prevent any influence on the voting,’ he said.

To allow for a ‘competitive’ election, the ruling party Awami League did not nominate any candidate or allow their party symbol to be used by any of those running. Hence, Awami League leaders vying for the Upazila posts are running as independent candidates.

After the last general election, the Election Commission’s biggest challenges for the polls are to ensure good voter turnout while keeping the election free of any influence, believe election observers.