Bangladesh hails 'milestone' local polls

by Shafiq Alam

Bangladesh's army-backed government said Tuesday it had taken a key step towards restoring democracy later this year by holding local elections that observers hailed as a success.

Voter turnout in Monday's polls was high with no reports of the violence that marred previous elections in the South Asian nation, the Election Commission said.

The vote was a "big step towards restoring democracy" in Bangladesh, which has been under a state of emergency since January 2007, election commissioner Sohul Hussain told AFP.

Although only 1.2 million of the country's 80.5 million voters were eligible to participate in the election, the ballot was seen as a test of the government's reforms and new high-tech voter list.

The list, completed last month, took a year to compile. All voters are identified by photograph, fingerprints and personal details, a process that eliminated more than 12.7 million fake voters, authorities said.

"It's a great milestone for the country. On average over 75 percent votes were cast and our electoral reforms worked. There was no violence, no intimidation and no fake votes or ballot stuffing," Hussain said."It sends a positive message to the voters that the country's next elections are going to be free, fair and peaceful."

The emergency was imposed after one of Bangladesh's main parties, the Awami League, accused the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) -- which ran the last government -- of rigging elections.

The dispute degenerated into strikes and violent protests, paralysing the economy and prompting the army to step in.

More than 5,000 independent election observers, including teams from the European Union, monitored Monday's vote, with one saying it was the "best local election held in the country since it became independent in 1971."

Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, head of the National Election Observation Council, told AFP the vote gave a promising signal that the government's plan to restore democracy by holding general elections in December was possible.

"It inspires confidence in the electoral roadmap to restore democracy in the country."

French Ambassador to Bangladesh, Charley Causeret, who observed voting just outside the capital Dhaka, said: "Everything went smoothly and there were no problems from an organisational point of view. To me, it was a success."

The Awami League, the party of ex-Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed -- out on bail from corruption charges and in the United States -- swept all four city mayoral posts and eight out of nine municipalities.

Sheikh Hasina, who led the country from 1996-2001, said the polls paved the way for a return to democratic rule.

"People's enthusiasm for voting amid the state of emergency has proved that they want a democratic government through a fair, transparent and acceptable election," Sheikh Hasina said in a statement.

She was one of about 150 top politicians detained by the government after it launched a nationwide crackdown on corruption a month after taking power.

She was freed on parole in June in an apparent deal with authorities that allowed her to travel to the United States and ensured her party's participation in the government's elections.

Her parole was due to end Wednesday, but a Home Ministry spokesman told AFP it had been extended by a month until September 6.

BNP spokesman Khandaker Delowar Hussain rejected the polls as "stage-managed."

-AFP