A total of 69.83 percent votes were cast in the elections to the Rajshahi University Central Students’ Union (RUCSU) election, officials confirmed on Thursday.
Election Commissioner of RUCSU, Mostafa Kamal Akand, came up with the final turnout after the end of voting.
Balloting of RUCSU began at 9am and continued until 4pm.
All ballot boxes were taken to Kazi Nazrul Islam Auditorium for counting.
The ballot papers would be bundled into groups of 100 for efficient counting, which will be conducted using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) machines under the supervision of a panel of experts, said the Commissioner.
"The final results will be prepared in three phases," said Commissioner Akand, adding that counting for one hall will begin only after the results of another are finalised. As a result, it may take 12 to 15 hours to complete the full counting process and declare results for all 283 posts.
Although counting was scheduled to begin at 5pm, it officially started around 6:30pm. The entire counting process is being displayed live on LED screens set up at Kazi Nazrul Islam Auditorium and the Shaheed Minar premises.
Besides, according to the university’s election observation team, the long-awaited RUCSU election was held in a free, fair and peaceful environment.
Professor Rafiqul Islam, head of the observer team, said, “We visited each polling centre and spoke with voters and election officials. Based on our observations, we have submitted a written report to the Registrar confirming that the election was conducted smoothly.”
He further stated that no complaints of vote rigging were received during the day.
“We didn’t observe any malpractice. However, due to a large number of voters in some halls, the process took longer than expected,” he added.
Some 247 candidates are contesting 23 posts in the central RUCSU election, while 58 candidates are vying for five seats in the university senate.
For the hall union polls, 597 candidates are contesting 252 posts across 17 residential halls, with 42 candidates elected unopposed.
In the central RUCSU race, 18 candidates are running for vice president (VP), 13 for general secretary (GS), and 16 for assistant general secretary (AGS).
For security, around 2,000 police personnel, along with six platoons of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and 12 teams of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), have been deployed to avoid untoward incidents.