All eyes on results as JUCSU vote counting finally ends

The chief election commissioner says the results will be announced after some ancillary tasks are completed

The protracted vote count in the Jahangirnagar University Central Students’ Union (JUCSU) election has finally reached completion, 45 hours after voting ended.

Jahangirnagar University Pro Vice-Chancellor (Administration) Prof Sohel Ahmed confirmed the development on Saturday afternoon.

Asked when the results would be announced, Chief Election Commissioner Prof Md Moniruzzaman said: “The counting is finished. There are some ancillary tasks to complete. Once those are done, we hope to announce the results soon.”

Voting began across 21 halls of the 12,000-strong campus at 9am on Thursday. Polls in most halls closed by 5pm, but long queues meant voting continued until 7:30pm in two or three.

Counting began under tight security at the Senate building after 10pm that night. Officials said turnout was around 68 percent.

The process, however, was thrown into disarray midway through when allegations surfaced that ballot papers and OMR machines had been purchased from a company linked to Jamaat-e-Islami. In response, the commission abandoned machine counting in favour of manual counting -- a switch that caused major delays.

A returning officer had said on Friday that about 8,000 students had voted, each casting three ballots for the central union. This meant that nearly 24,000 ballots needed to be counted.

Counting for the hall unions finished on Friday evening. JUCSU counting began at 8pm that night.

Moniruzzaman acknowledged the challenges, saying earlier that the commission lacked experience with such a manual system.