BD Correspondent: Election Commission is making all-out efforts to persuade foreign observers to monitor the next general election, now slated for December 30, when the European Union has already announced that it will not send observers.

The EU, however, has informed foreign ministry as well as EC that two EU experts are scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on November 27 and leave Dhaka on December 12, an election commissioner told the media on Sunday.

EC would send letters to the election commissions of India, Afghanistan, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka inviting them to send observers to monitor the 11th parliamentary polls in Bangladesh, EC joint secretary M Asaduzza man told the media.

He said that commission also would send invitations to different international organisations working with elections and good governance.

He said that the commission would write to the foreign missions to take necessary initiatives to encourage the people involved in electoral process in their respective countries for coming to Bangladesh to monitor the polls.
The EC on Sunday held a meeting with the representatives of foreign, home and information ministries to discuss how foreign elections observers and journalists would operate.

Form the meeting, the EC officials asked the foreign ministry and immigration department of home ministry to take necessary initiatives to provide on arrival visas if needed to the international election observers and journalists.
The home ministry was also asked to set a help desk at airport in this regard, the EC official said.

He said that the home ministry also would issue necessary clearance to the international election observers and journalists and forward it to EC and foreign ministry.

EC also asked information ministry to set up an information cell for giving necessary information to the election observers and journalists, the EC official said.

Earlier, European External Action Service of the European Union explained its stance to the EC that the EU decided not to deploy election observation mission in the 11th parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.

The EU conveyed the message in a diplomatic note via Bangladesh embassy in Brussels on September 27 in response to a letter the commission sent on December 18, 2017 inviting the European Union to observe the elections.
According to the EC officials, the EU sent a large number of election observers in the 2001 and 2008 general elections but they did not do so for the January 5, 2014 controversial election.

The EC officials said that a total of 8,874 observers from 35 local organisations and only four foreign observers came to Bangladesh to monitor the 10th parliamentary election held on January 5, 2014, while some 1.59 lakh local observers and 593 foreign observers monitored the 2008 general election.

Election Commission recently faced huge criticism after its secretary Helaluddin Ahmed asked local election observers to stay at the polling stations like ‘statue’, even when they would observe any irregularities.