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BSS-25
JOY-VOTE-OPPOSITION
AL’s vote margin disproves opposition’s “rigging” claim: Joy
DHAKA, Jan 12, 2019 (BSS) – Prime Minister’s ICT affairs adviser Sajeeb
Wajed Joy has called “mathematically impossible” the opposition claims of
vote rigging in view of the margin of votes that offered Awami League the
landslide victory in the December 30 elections.
“The Awami League’s margin over the BNP is about 49 million votes. It is
simply not possible to manipulate elections by 49 million votes without it
being caught on everyone’s mobile camera,” Joy in a post on his facebook
today.
He added: “The fact is that it is mathematically impossible.”
Joy accused Jatiya Oikya Front (JOF) with BNP being its key partner of
lobbying with their “foreign masters” to prove rigging in the just concluded
national elections.
“The BNP and Oikya Front, having been thoroughly rejected by our voters,
have taken to begging their foreign masters for help. They are on an
international lobbying and PR blitz to try to prove that our elections were
rigged,” he said.
As for their claims of voter intimidation, Joy said, even if every voter
who did not vote for AL voted for the Oikyofront, “they would still be more
than 22 million votes short”.
The premier’s adviser simultaneously criticized “a section of our so called
‘civil society” for their continued support to BNP’s international PR
campaign against the election while refuting point-wise their allegations
saying, “I would like to address all their complaints and raise a few of my
own”.
The first complaint of theirs, he said, was that voter turnout was too
high and indicates false votes. The final voter turnout figure is 80 percent
and it is not a record in Bangladesh and that distinction is held by the 2008
elections under the 2007-2008 ‘caretaker’ regime when turnout was 87 percent,
he said, adding that the AL won that election in a landslide with 48 percent
of the vote by itself.
In 2001 the voter turnout was around 75.6 percent and in 1996 it was 75
percent. Turnout was just slightly higher in December 30 polls because this
is the first fully participatory election in a decade, he said.
The second propaganda, he said, is that the ruling party received 90
percent of the vote. This is a complete falsehood, he said, adding that the
AL by itself received around 72 percent.
“Our Mohajote allies received just under 5 percent. Even the 72 percent is
not a record for the AL. In the 1973 election after independence the AL
received 73.2 percent of the vote and just as the reason then was that the AL
led the country to Independence,” Joy said.
AL’s vote increase this time has two very good reasons. The first reason,
he said, is simply because AL government has improved the lives of the
citizens more than any other government in Bangladesh’s history.
“We have become a middle income country, per capita income has tripled,
poverty has been halved, almost everyone has access to education, basic
healthcare, electricity, and the list is endless. If there was a way to
improve the lives of the Bangladeshi people, our government has done it or
the progress is visible, he added.
About the role of civil society he said, ‘civil society’ keeps harping
about how the Bangladeshi voters are anti-incumbent, but that is just an
indication of how out of touch they are with the common man. If you are an
ordinary citizen, even if you are a wealthy businessman, your life and
business are doing so much better now since the AL has turned Bangladesh into
the fastest growing economy in the world, he said.
“Why would you vote against the government that has transformed your life
and business?,” he commented.
The second reason, he said, is that AL’s election campaign did not start
last year. It started right after the 2014 elections.
MORE/TAN/AR/ARS/1933 hrs