In a statement issued at about 12:00pm on Sunday, the ministry said the 11th national elections were being held in a free, fair, festive and peaceful manner where people fully exercised their voting rights despite ‘biased speculations’ by many quarters, including ANFREL.

Odhikar, a non-government organisation of Bangladesh, was the founding member of the Asian Network for Free Elections or ANFREL.

Earlier the ministry said, ‘Odhikar is widely known for its disproportionate bias and prejudice against Bangladesh, in particular the government of Awami League, which is evident in its various reports, including the recent ones published in October and December 2018.’

A total of 174 foreign observers and 65 foreign journalists from various countries and organisations observed Sunday’s election, said the ministry.

Some 25,900 local observers from 81 organisations and 7,000 to 8,000 local media personnel also observed and covered the elections.

The election was conducted by the independent Election Commission, which had over the last five years successfully organised 6,937 elections at the national and local levels against 4,808 electoral posts, said the ministry.

The ministry said that the people of the country earnestly hoped that the elections would be yet another milestone in Bangladesh’s journey to sustained high economic growth, prosperity and inclusion in a democratic environment.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina had reiterated her commitment to accept the people’s verdict, it said.
The Election Commission deployed 66 returning officers, 40,183 presiding officers and 414,624 polling officers to help 10,42,38,677 voters to cast their votes.

Some 1,328 executive magistrates and 244 judicial magistrates were deployed in the polling centres along with 6,08,000 law enforcing personnel from police, army, navy, Coast Guard, the Border Guard of Bangladesh and the Rapid Action Battalion, the ministry said.

The foreign ministry said it was possible due to prompt and efficient facilitation by the Election Commission.
ANFREL itself had mentioned in its statement that 13 of its 32 observers were already accredited by December 21, 2018, the ministry said.

The rest of the applications were under process before ANFREL unilaterally decided to withdraw its mission.
A less number of foreign observers did not ‘indicate a common feeling of discouragement’ and rather several international partners saw it as a positive development for Bangladesh’s democratic process and role of the Election Commission, the ministry said.

The European Union delegation had recently stated in a press conference in Dhaka that Bangladesh was capable of following its own rules to conduct a free and fair election and ‘therefore we don’t need to send observers.’

The information on the electoral violence provided by ANFREL ignored the fact that these had arisen mainly out of intra-party rivalries within Bangladesh Nationalist Party itself aggravated by multiple nominations given by BNP against one seat (696 candidates against 300 seats), according to the ministry.

Since December 1, the electoral violence by BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami had so far caused the death of 11 Awami League workers, including five killed on the eve of the election night, and one ANSAR member and injured 450 people, including presiding officers.

Compared to previous general elections that witnessed extreme violence and arson, election campaigns had witnessed significantly low incidents of violence till the morning of December 30, 2018, the ministry said.
According to a study conducted by Dhaka University based think tank, pre-election violence in previous elections caused the death of 90 individuals on average whereas the 11th parliament elections had seen much less deaths and violence.

In respect to the sweeping allegations of arrests and harassment of opposition leaders and others, it was reiterated that no arrest had been made on false or fresh charges and had been arrested on specific criminal charges, said the ministry adding that the number of arrestees mentioned by ANFREL was baseless, misleading and exaggerated.

This election was being monitored by local and international observers, the media, civil society of Bangladesh, who would help the country’s democratic process, regardless of false accusations and biased assumptions of vested quarters.