Defending their decision not to monitor elections, Head of the European Union (EU) delegation to Bangladesh William Hanna on Saturday hoped that the political parties would make the best use of their times to reach some sort of understanding for a sustainable, inclusive and credible election. “We’ll follow what happens next, and I’ll be asked to do a new report in January about what could be next things to do. But I really would think that it would be good to come to some sort of understanding soon…sooner rather than later,” Hanna told a select group of reporters.
He said they are not intervening rather encouraging political parties to reach an agreement that is politically acceptable and constitutionally viable and mentioned that the EU would remain hopeful that this could be resolved.
“We consistently said that there needs to be an agreement — politically acceptable solution and constitutionally viable. I think it would have been better had it been resolved earlier,” Hanna added.
Responding to a question, Hanna said they did not side with any quarter by halting the deployment of Election Observation Mission in Bangladesh for the January-5 election. “Europe doesn’t take sides in this question… we didn’t want our pulling-out to be seen as supporting one or staying to be seen supporting the other side, that’s not the point.”
He explained further saying that they wanted to support the democratic rights of people to be able to go out and vote to choose the next government. “It’s EU’s long commitment to Bangladesh.”
The EU sees no point in sending observers for the Jan-5 polls as there are absence of necessary conditions for a transparent, inclusive and credible election compelled them to halt the decision for the time being. “…so the conditions for elections which will be transparent, inclusive and credible are not there for the moment,” Hanna said.
Because of that, Hanna added, she (Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission) is taking the decision, for the time being, to halt election observation by the EU.
“But, she also points out that when the conditions are right we would like to observe the elections. I’m saying we stand ready to deploy observers when the conditions are right,” Hanna added. Amid criticisms for not attending the Victory Day celebrations at Savar, Hanna clarified its position saying that they had to skip the programme for their urgent meeting, but ‘no disrespect was intended at all’.
“We had a very busy week, and unfortunately we had to work on a public holiday here Victory Day. I would like to make it clear that we would never intend any disrespect to Bangladesh, or to the people of Bangladesh or to the people who fought and died for freedom of Bangladesh,” he said.
-With UNB/The Independent input
