A report published by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on the 11th general election contained biased information, as it only represented false statements given by the parties defeated in the December 30 polls.
CallReady, a research organization, said this at a report launching ceremony held at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
The TIB report, published on January 15, termed the election partially participatory, citing many alleged and witnessed irregularities during voting.
However, the Election Commision rejected the report and termed it “predetermined and imaginary”.
Dr Abul Hasnat Milton, head of CallReady’s research team, said: “The TIB report was faulty, the survey should have been done following proper scientific and systematic methods.
“Any candidate, party or alliance that conceded a defeat in elections in the past, has never accepted the polls result, he said.
“The TIB itself admitted that it used the information taken from news reports, instead of questioning voters themselves,” he added.
Participation is an essential component which was missing from the TIB’s study, he further said.
Stating that TIB spread misinformation in the name of research, Hasnat said: “Our research followed a systematic procedure and yielded authentic results.”
The CallReady research team planned their study by randomly selecting 5,000 participants from across the country. However, they managed to reach just 2,112 mobile phone users between January 21 and 25, and only 1,476 of them participated in the survey.
The study revealed that 1,174 of the respondents exercised their franchise in the election. Out of them, 1,047 voters cast their ballots for their favourite candidates. Meanwhile, only 6.77% of the voters claimed that the election result was not acceptable.
Hasnat claimed that the study was conducted impartially, and they had not heard any allegations of vote-rigging while questioning the participants.
CallReady Chief Operating Officer Azad Abul Kalam, Chief Coordinator Kazi Ahmed Parvez and Research Coordinator Md Mosharraf Hossain also attended the event.
Meanwhile, TIB Director (Outreach and Communication) Sheikh Manjur-E-Alam has rejected the allegations and said they applied the highest globally accepted methodologies to prepare their report on the election.
The Election Process Tracking system was not violated while working on the study, he said.
The details about the report and how it was prepared was already published in its website, he added.
“All the information that one needs to know about the report, has been on our website since January 15, and anybody looking for a better understanding can go through it,” suggested the TIB official.
He also stated that contacting them directly in this regard would be the best way to clarify any confusion.
