The cause lies in the fact that the voter list prepared by so much trial and error method contains about 14 million more voters than any logical estimate. Not only that a good number of real voters have not been enrolled. Besides, some stranded Pakistanis were listed as voters who are still showing allegiance to Pakistan, not to independent Bangladesh. A number of Rohinga refugees (citizens of Myanmar) were said to be enrolled in the list. So the list is simply a mess! The answer is an obvious 'yes'.

And obviously question arises how the constitutional body made such a faulty so called electoral roll that independent Bangladesh had never seen before? Then should we still have a revised voters' list? Is our EC actually incompetent? The EC has always been consisted of three or more very competent persons, mostly the judges of the High Court or of the Appellate Division of honourable Supreme Court. All of these respected judges had a reliable record of legal proceedings. Then what made them so inefficient that they failed in producing an acceptable voter list this time?

It's a sad story that at first Justice Aziz the CEC who has been on leave (or actually stepped down?), could not 'understand' the meaning of a High Court (HC), order that voter list should be revised, not be made afresh. Even this veteran Justice interpreted the HC directives that it was not bounden on EC, instead the EC could well keep the directives aside and go on with the 'sacred task' of preparing a new list. So the voters were being enlisted anew since January 1, 2006.

But later the HC ordered to stop this and revise the existing one prepared in 2000 before the 2001 election. The unqualified ones, especially due to death should be deleted, while those reaching the age of 18 should be incorporated in the list. However, the HC was not very clear on some probable false (non-existent) voters listed in 2000.

This time the electoral roll had a setback for a while. In a few days our funny CEC supported by two new ECs came up with a sermon that there was not enough time to go house to house again to revise the voters' list. So election officials (who understood well in advance the outcome of this futile effort) were made to sit in their offices calling the prospective voters to get enlisted coming to these offices. Very few people had enough time to physically come, leaving their livelihood occupations, and this failure was published in media largely. The HC came up with another order that EC must go house to house again to revise the list. So lastly, the EC drank some filthy water in revising the voter list again.

When the EC thought that all the prospective voters were enlisted, it came up with a controversial statement that voter list would not be published for the people. Demands were pouring in the media that it's the duty of the EC to make the list public so that people can see if all qualified ones were listed and the non-existent ones deleted or not. Lastly the EC did that but the list spoke of over 93 million voters in a populace of 140 million. This is roughly two-thirds of the population and seemed impossible to all specialists in the population studies discipline.

Then the EC and some apparently biased think-tank came up with the explanation that increase of voters in 2000 from the earlier one over 30%, while this time the increase is less than 30%. CEC himself took a high hand on the media saying, "I am sorry to say, journalists here always print all the bad news under red banner headlines" (DS: CEC vents venom on media, vested quarters, April 26, 2006).

All the four wrong steps (renewing in place of revising, not going house to house, declaring that list would not be published and inclusion of about 14 million ghost voters) taken by the EC (led by the then CEC Justice Aziz) serially, incited people to think that without a behind-the-scene design such mischief cannot be done by this otherwise competent EC.

The behind the scene high hand was assumed when the BNP secretary general Mr. Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan uttered that during the several round of talks with AL general secretary Mr. Abdul Jalil, no question on CEC Justice Aziz was raised, the question was then on the appointment of Justice Hasan as the Chief Adviser (CA). But the whole nation knows the case of CA was the first one on the 14-party agenda (not the only one) and both the general secretaries had a consensus on saying 'goodbye' to Justice Aziz. Lastly the case was made clear by the ex-PM Begum Zia by asking the CG not to 'tinker with' the EC (as if the EC was a gunpowder pack and tinkering with it would spread the obvious fire on every direction!).

So the 'voter list' revised by the four-party alliance's 'yes men' in EC is a document of conspiracy not a true voter list. No election should be held using this without a sincere revision. But how can this be done? By this time the EC has declared election schedule with the election date on January 21.

Is there any scope to revise the declaration of election date? In normal condition, there's no scope. But this is not at all a normal and congenial atmosphere and the EC secretariat is seeking the President's initiative in changing the schedule, if needed. If the election is held using this faulty voter list, it shall have the same fate as of the 1996 February election. Does the nation have enough resource to do the same thing twice in few months? The answer is an emphatic 'No'. So the election schedule should be withdrawn not only because the 14-party combine is against this, but also to save the nation from a huge waste. There is not much time for revising the voter list, but provided it is done sincerely, the EC can collect data in one week and organise those in another week appointing additional manpower, and also using the ICT resource; then it can declare the schedule again in two weeks.

Even if the EC fails to have a revised list in two weeks, it should not proceed towards election before having a truly revised list. Then the four-party conspiracy can be regarded as an 'act of God' under article 123 (4) that provides for deferring election for another 90 days. The Supreme Court can help the process, if such necessity arises.

M A S Molla is a freelance contributor on social issues.