Elections in India and COVID-19 Pandemic - M.A.Aleem Neurologist #Trichy #Tamilnadu #India

Elections and COVID-19 Pandemic. 

The current COVID-19 Pandemic leads to  many issues in each and  every country .

One of the cascading effects of COVID-19 Pandemic has been its impact on democracies. 

Some countries have pushed ahead with elections. Some other countries has postponed their elections and some other countries are in dilemma.

 Hongkong, Ethiopia, Italy, UK,Somalia Solomon Islands Spain and Syria has postponed  their local and national  elections because of  problems arising out of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

France has conducted its municipal elections with some postponement. 

Israel has conducted its legislative elections in March 2, 2020.

 In Germany municipal elections were conducted in March 2020.

South Korea held its legislative elections in 5th Apirl 2020 without any much newer Outbreak of COVID-19 cases.

Burundi held its Presidential and parliamentary elections in 20th May 2020.

Iceland has undergone Presidential elections in 27th June 2020.

Serbia had its parliamentary elections in June 21,2020.

Mongolia held its legislative elections in 24th June 2020.

Dominican Republic had its general election in from May 17 to July 5, 2020.

General election 2020 in Singapore was held in 10th July .

In Poland , its Presidential election was held from 10th May to 12th July 2020.

In Croatia parliamentary election was held on July 5, 2020.

Sri Lankan parliamentary election was taken place on

5 August 2020.

Belarusian presidential election 2020 was held on 

9th August .

New Zealand Parliamentary elections are scheduled in September 2020 without any postponement

Tanzanian general elections  are scheduled on 28th October  2020.

US presidential elections 2020, are going to take place on 

3 November.

Americans were alarmed on July 30th, when their president suggested on Twitter that the November 3 presidential election should be delayed because mail-in ballots would be fraudulent. 

 A series of tweets by the American President  has also suggesting that the upcoming presidential election should be delayed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” Trump tweeted.

 Romanian legislative election are scheduled on

 31 December 2020 . But it may be postponed to 21 March 2021.

2020 Ghanaian presidential election

Is scheduled on 7 December .

In India, 

Bihar will be the first state where assembly elections will be held amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The polls are likely to be held sometime in October-November 2020.

The Election Commission (EC) of India on Friday 21.8.2020 issued the new guidelines for the conduct of elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Postal ballot facility has been extended to the electors with disabilities, people above age of 80 years, people employed in notified essential services and who are COVID-19 positive/possibly infected.

Face mask, sanitizer, thermal scanners, gloves, face shield and PPE kits will be used during the electoral process with  ensuring social distancing norms.

Hand gloves will be provided to all electors for signing on the voter register and pressing button of electronic voting  machines (EVM) for voting.

Candidates are asked to file the nomination papers online and people are advised  to wear face masks during election-related activities.

The EC of India has also revised the norms of the number of people accompanying the candidate and number of vehicles at the time of filing nomination.

For the first time, the candidates will have the option to deposit security amount online for contesting the elections.

The EC has limited the number of persons including candidate for door to door campaign to five.

Public meeting and road shows will be allowed with suitable instructions subject to containment instructions issued by the government of India.

World “has to recover together” and help the vulnerable states to overcome all their issues including in  conducting the elections  during the current COVID-19 Pandemic.

Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, democracy should not be indefinitely postponed to Choice a Government or a local body .