The chief election commissioner, Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, said on Monday that media and local observers would oversee the January 5 elections in absence of foreign observers.
‘We had invited them to observe the polls. But every organisation has its own guidelines and policy. They will decide whether they will send the observers considering those policy and guidelines,’ the CEC said while talking to reporters at the EC secretariat.
He said if the foreign observers do not come to observe the poll ‘at their own consideration, local observers and journalists would observe the polls.
Asked whether foreign observers’ decision to boycott poll observation would call the January 5 polls into question, the CEC said, ‘We have no say about this matter. You [newsmen] and local observers are here to observe the polls. You will watch yourself and show the countrymen.’
Asked if it will hurt the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and the countries and organisations that have decided not to send observers, Rakibuddin replied: ‘This is not a matter of bilateral relations.’
European Union, United States and Commonwealth have already announced that they would not observe the January 5 polls which, what they said, fall short of conditions of being an acceptable and inclusive one.
-With New Age input
