The Election Working Group (EWG), a coalition of election observer organisations, evaluated the just-held elections in three city corporations-North Dhaka, South Dhaka and Chittagong-as 'not credible'.
"The elections were marred by a significant level of electoral fraud and incidents of violence…. based on the extent of malpractice and irregularities observed, EWG evaluates these elections to be not credible," the EWG said at a press conference on Wednesday at the National Press Club in the city.
"Numerous incidents of ballot stuffing, intimidation, booth capture and violence were reported," said the alliance.
EWG director Dr Abdul Alim read out their preliminary statement on the North Dhaka, South Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation elections.
EWG director Dr Abdul Alim in his written statement said casting votes after snatching the ballot papers was rampant on the polling day.
The election in three city corporations was held on Tuesday amid boycott of the BNP-backed mayor candidates alleging rigging and sporadic incidents of violence.
The EWG came up with the assertion while revealing its primary report after observing the 619 polling centres out of 2700 by 619 observers in the three city corporations.
EWG's steering committee members Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, Taleya Rehman and Kamrul Hasan responded to several questions from the journalists.
Ruling Awami League-backed mayoral candidates Sayeed Khokon and Annisul Huq were elected mayors unofficially in Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) respectively and AJM Nasir in Chittagong City Corporation (CCC).
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-backed candidates and a significant numbers of other candidates boycotted or rejected the election.
The EWG said despite adequate polling operations in many of the stations observed, the integrity of the overall process was undermined by the scale of violations observed.
The transparency of the process was damaged by the significant hurdles observation groups faced in receiving accreditation and deploying observers.
The observer alliance alleged the incidents of violence and irregularities occurred in a pre-planned way to alter the elections results.
Of the EWG-observed centres, incidents of ballot stuffing happened at 55 centres in DSCC, 46 in DNCC and 37 in CCC. Violent incidents happened at 66 centres in DSCC, 26 in DNCC and 72 in CCC.
Intimidation of voters happened at 33 centres in DSCC, 39 in DNCC and 30 in CCC. "These incidents are very small parts of the numerous incidents of violence, ballot stuffing and intimidation of voters," said EWG Director Dr Abdul Alim.
He said when a serious incident was reported, the EWG secretariat sought confirmation of the reported violations, when possible, by sending a second person to verify details of to speak to the presiding officer via phone.
"A total of twenty-six EWG observers were not allowed to enter polling stations on the election day in all the three corporations," he said.
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