EC keeping conscience clear?

THE tendency of electoral violence and irregularities, far from decreasing, has rather been on an ascending curve with the passage of each phase of the ongoing upazila elections. The third phase was marked by a phenomenal rise in the number of deaths, injuries, electoral frauds, fake voting, ballot stuffing,  forcible occupation of centres and so on compared to the first two phases. That notwithstanding, there were fewer instances of pre-polls violence and irregularities even in the third phase, not to mention in the first two phases, of the upazila polls. But the pattern has changed for the worse in the fourth phase of the upazila polls.
In the last three phases of the upazila polls, the administration was virtually looking on when fake voting, forcible occupation of polling centres and ballot-box snatching and so on were taking place with abandon. But remember what an election commissioner did finally say after the election was over? One could not believe one's ears when he described the conduct of the third phase of the upazila polls as 'peaceful,' though three people died during the widespread violence.
What was the election commissioner trying to prove, if anything, by such a ridiculous announcement? But by saying so, did he not only make light of the violence, but also gave some kind of 'legitimacy' to it. When such is the commissioner's outlook on an election's being 'peaceful,' then one wonders what magnitude of anarchy and violence would be necessary for an election to be termed really 'violent'!   
With news of pre-poll violence coming from the districts days ahead of the fourth round of the upazila elections, tensions had naturally been mounting in apprehension of what might happen on election day itself. And the public did not have to wait too long. The emerging reports from the morning of Sunday might suffice to provide a glimpse of what would be the larger picture over the entire day. Consider these: A union parishad chairman and union level  president of AL under Gazaria upazila of  Munshiganj was hacked to death in polls-related violence; voting (!) was completed within three hours through stuffing of ballot boxes in Agailhara upazila of Barisal; ballot boxes stuffed on the night before the election at 20 centres at Barura upazila of Comilla; 12 wounded in  clashes at several polling centres in Kolaroa of Satkhira; 10 polling centres captured after clashes in sadar upazila in Jessore; ballot box snatched, one shot in Satkanira in Chittagong, etc, etc.
It cannot, however, be said that these incidents of violence and violation of electoral codes of conduct came out of the blue. In fact, the media had been regularly informing the public of the potential spots of violence. In Kolaroa of Satkhira, or Jessore sadar, for instance, the pro-ruling AL candidates were already in the news for their threatening postures. And they did not fail to make good on their threats. How could then it all happen before the eyes of the Election Commission (EC)? Or should we assume that it was not aware of these reports or, worse still, that all these developments were taking place on its watch? What was holding the EC back from taking pre-emptive measures to avoid those preventable deaths, incidents of violence and irregularities from happening?   
Sadly though, what we have been hearing so far from the EC are rather uninspiring talks about what it had said or wrote to whom. But the public want nothing but action from the EC, because, after all, it is the constitutionally authorised body to engage the administrative machinery of the government to present the nation with free, fair and credible elections. People are least interested to hear what email the EC received from its peripatetic chief now in USA, or what notes it has sent to the administrative chiefs of the divisions and districts or to the respective officials of the law-enforcement departments, or even how it reminded the army of its responsibility by referring to a relevant section of the CrPC. What does the EC mean to achieve by disclosing these mere procedural aspects of its work to the public? To keep its conscience clear? Who will then take the responsibility for all the anarchy during the elections and the administration's failure to control it?
In an attempt to blame the polls-related violence on the upazila elections' taking partisan dimensions, Election Commissioner Abu Hafiz criticised the central leadership of the major political parties for creating tension. While we are highly critical of this kind of interference in upazila polls by the central leaders of these parties, especially by lawmakers from the ruling party, the fact remains that local government elections had never been non-party elections in true sense of the term. Even in last year's city corporation elections, the nation witnessed how intensely the two major political parties were involved in those polls. And was not this self-same EC in charge of those elections and that too without any complaints about those being politically-biased.  So why is the EC complaining now?
Without beating about the bush, the EC should be able to call a spade a spade. If it is the ruling party and the government that are making the EC's job hard, it must spell that out. People would then understand and make their own judgment of the situation. It's the only way that the EC may keep its conscience clear, not the other way around.

The writer is Editor, Life & Science, The Daily Star.
E-mail: [email protected]