Published: 04 July 2024
Although the Election Commission has been publishing affidavits of candidates participating in elections since the ninth parliament election of 2008, it has remained merely as a formality. No initiative is seen to verify the authenticity and consistency of information in electoral affidavits or to make the received information useful in a way that assists ordinary people in decision-making. In such reality, this endeavour by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) is part of creating awareness amongst voters about candidates and assisting stakeholders including concerned institutions in making correct decisions, by analysing the information given in affidavits and presenting an overall picture of what message the obtained results give to the people, through making all information of affidavits more easily accessible in an analysable manner on a large scale.
In analysing electoral affidavit information, we are seeing that independent candidates participated in large numbers in the twelfth national parliament election, and the highest number of independent parliament members in history were elected and went to parliament. The reason behind this is naturally the encouragement provided by the ruling party Bangladesh Awami League to independent candidates to participate in the election. We have also seen that the highest 56.54% businessperson candidates amongst the last four elections participated in the twelfth election. The rate of businessperson candidates' participation has increased by nearly 9% over a 15-year gap. Sixty-five % of elected parliament members are businesspersons, which is the highest amongst the last four parliaments. The rate of businesspersons amongst members of independent Bangladesh's first national parliament was 18%. Similarly, the number of candidates and parliament members earning crores of taka has also increased. The number of candidates earning at least one crore taka per year is 164, this is also the highest in the last four elections. Nearly 85% of the twelfth parliament's members are crorepatis based on movable property (based on movable property value). Comparing the average movable property of elected parliament members in the last four national parliament elections shows that property increased by more than 75% in the eleventh parliament compared to the tenth parliament.
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