Lack of People's Confidence in Current Election Commission

A civic platform, Citizens for Good Governance, working for election and democracy, organized a roundtable discussion titled ‘Reconstitution of Election Commission: Citizens’ Thinking’ at the National Press Club in Dhaka.

Former election commissioners and polls experts said the political parties should be consulted for reconstituting the next election commission to bring back the people’s confidence in the constitutional body.

Addressing a roundtable discussion on Saturday, they observed that the main concern regarding the election is the lack of people’s confidence in it and underscored the need for taking measures to restore public confidence in the commission.

“The main problem in the election is the lack of people’s confidence. The defeated party rejects the election. We will have to work out what is required to bring the confidence back in the commission,” former chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda told the roundtable.

Referring to the process of reconstituting election commission in other countries, the immediate-past CEC said, “The election commission is formed through consultation with the political parties in many countries. It is a good system. We suggested the system in the draft law we [past election commission] had proposed for appointing election commissioners.”

He said the people’s confidence will come back in the commission if it is reconstituted after consulting political parties.

The issue of constitution of the election commission has come to the surface in recent times as the current commission, which has been widely criticised for reported failure to ensure peaceful and credible polls, is set to expire early next year.

However, the former chief election commissioner said the election will never be fair if the government in place does not have the goodwill even if there is people’s confidence in the commission.

He said the election commission led by him could “hold some fair elections, thanks to the assistance of the then caretaker government.”

Former election commissioner M Sakhawat Hussain also echoed Huda saying, the election will not be fair unless the government cooperates with the commission.

Political analyst Syed Abul Maksud said a kind of fear had been created in the people’s mind over the reconstitution of the election commission.

"The people fear that the government will appoint such people to the election commission who will not be able to hold a fair election," Abul Maksud noted.

The Citizens for Good Governance secretary, Badiul Alam Majumder, underscored the need for framing a law for appointing the election commissioners following the constitutional instructions.