Saturday, December 29, 2018
by David Bergman Bangladesh Politico
Exclusive: Documents suggest AL rigging
BangladeshPolitico has been sent a copy
of a power point presentation that provides new information on what
appears to be one part of the government’s proposed strategy of rigging
the vote. Read here more generally about pre-vote rigging.
The presentation is titled: “How to win 11th Bangladesh General Election 2018: Strictly for Bangladesh Awami League.” BangladeshPolitico obtained a copy of the document from a source in Police Headquarters.
The information is contained in the
final two slides of the presentation given to the Awami League
government, probably before the formation of the National Unity Front,
as it only refers to the BNP, and assumes an untroubled relationship
with the Jatiya Party.
The rest of the slide presentation seems uncontentious polling analysis.
The two relevant slides – slide 32 and 33 – are both titled, “Strategy to each categories of Centre.”
The slides recommend that in those
polling centres where the BNP is expected to win there should be a “Core
AL Presiding Officer,” “Strict Policing,” and “Slow Casting”.
Presiding officers are assigned by the Election Commission and are supposed to be politically neutral.
“Strict policing” presumably refers to stopping opposition voters from coming to vote.
“Slow casting” refers to slowing down the numbers of people allowed to vote.
For those centres where a
Jamaat-e-Islami candidate is expected to win, the slide recommends the
same combination of actions but instead of “Strict Policing, it refers
to “VVI Strict Policing”.
For those centres where the BNP or the
Jammat could win, but they are marginal centres (“Marginal win by
BNP/JI”) the slides recommends the following combination: “Core AL
Presiding Officers”, “strict policing”, “Good team work of AL+JP”, and
“Slow casting”
Full presentation can be downloaded from here
Other “2018 Elections” articles
– Dec 27: Is it time to give the BNP opposition a chance?
– Dec 25: Awami League’s new crisis of legitimacy
– Dec 23: A disgrace of a website
– Dec 22: Facebook exposes government’s fake news
– Dec 22: Sajeeb Joy’s poll half-truths
– Dec 21: Why the Government is fixing the election
– Dec 15: Full Pre-election polls for download
– Dec 13: Challenging the Orthodox View
– Dec 13: Fear and Awami League leaders
– Dec 11: Bangladesh’s “Closing Democratic Space“
– Dec 9: Exclusive: Results of Confidential Poll revealed
– Dec 7: Disappearances before 2014 election
– Dec 7: Forced out, but service resumes