EC Secretary Alamgir has no answer to low turnout in Dhaka city polls

The Election Commission secretary has said he will need to do a research to find the reasons behind the low turnout in Dhaka city elections.

Md Alamgir says they are “not unhappy” with the 27.15 percent turnout in Dhaka North and South City Corporations on average, but would be “happier” if it would have at the level they had expected.

“It needs to be researched why the turnout was low even after the commission took all steps to hold fair elections,” he said.

He added the holidays, including on the election day, might have caused an exodus out of Dhaka.

“Some others might have been busy Facebooking,” he said.

“And some ruling party supporters might have thought there would be no problem for their candidates to win even if they did not vote,” the secretary surmised.

DELAY IN RESULTS FROM EVMS

Officials had said it would be possible to announce the results within half an hour from the end of voting at 4pm, but the final outcomes were declared after eight to 10 hours.

While announcing the results, Dhaka South Returning Officer Abdul Baten said, “Many presiding officers sent results manually. We also had to take the results manually from those who made mistakes in sending the results using tabs [tablet PCs].”

Dhaka North Returning Officer Md Abul Kasem, who declined to comment on the matter while announcing the results, said on Sunday that the results had been ready at the centres in time.

“But we had to bring the results from many faraway centres as there were internet connection problems,” he added.