Editorial
Need for a credible national election
EU's sentiment resonate ours too
The opinion expressed by the visiting EU delegation regarding the next general election, that the mechanism and the process must be trusted by the people, echoes the general sentiments. And the basic prerequisite for this is that the elections would have to be free, transparent and fair.
The country has seen five national elections since 1991, three of which were held under a caretaker government while the one in January 1991 was held under a special dispensation under Justice Shahbuddin. And all these were not only nationally recognised as being free, fair and transparent those were also acknowledged to be so internationally. And out of those only the one in February 1996, organised by the BNP before the CTG system was instituted, was ultimately scrapped because it turned out to be neither participatory, free, fair nor transparent.
We believe that both the major parties want credible elections, the only point of divergence is the method of conducting the election. And in this regard we would hope that the lesson of the February 1996 election and its fate would not be lost on the party presently in power, the AL. It was the AL as the opposition then who boycotted the election, and agitated for its annulment.
We have said this in the past and repeat now that doing away with the CTG was wrong, and the fact that the AL did not consider the option offered by the High Court, of holding the next two elections under the present CTG system, opens to question its intentions. But even more so, given that the three elections held under the CTGs had been widely accepted, regardless of what the party that had lost the elections thought of it, doing away with the system has been injudicious.
The moot point is that the elections would have to be universally acceptable, whatever the mechanism of holding it might be. And it is our opinion, and we feel that a vast majority of the people would concur, that with the incumbent continuing in position of authority the elections might not be seen to be free fair or transparent. And whatever arrangement is evolved, those remain the criteria to fulfil.
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