Peaceful UZ elections!

WE find the Election Commission's (EC) claim that the third phase of UZ elections was 100 percent peaceful, and that there was nothing wrong in the election, utterly disingenuous. For the electoral body to project a totally different picture of the elections, in stark contrast to reports carried in the media, amounts to not only watering down the level of violence and all manner of vote malpractice, it is also an attempt to screen the failure of the EC to conduct peaceful elections.
If what the people saw on Saturday is peaceful we wonder what a violent election would look like. It is not so much the question of the number of polling centres affected but the free-for-all trend. This bodes ill for the electoral process.
The EC's trifling with violence being usual in local elections, and deaths being the will of Allah, is insensitive and extremely cynical. We wonder why the EC should give a clean chit to the election when the fact is otherwise. By doing so it is not only justifying violence but also in a way encouraging electoral malpractice.
We are constrained to say that the EC has failed to ensure fairness and sanctity of the polls. Its much vaunted steps to ensure that have been proved ineffective. Should it not have taken cue from the level of pre-poll violence in some UZs and taken appropriate steps in that regard? Its failure to act against violation of election rules during canvassing has contributed to the violence, fraud and vote rigging.
Two other phases of UZ elections are to come. And we would hope the EC will fulfil its statutory obligations without fear or favour.