Dhaka Bureau: This time, 210 organizations have applied to the Election Commission for election monitoring.The institutions that want to get registered ahead of the 12th parliamentary elections have applied.
If these local institutions are considered eligible for the scrutiny of the Election Commission (EC), they will have the opportunity to monitor all elections of Parliament and local governments for the next five years.
Last Thursday, under the leadership of the joint secretary of the legal branch of the commission, the seven-member monitoring agency’s registration application verification committee also held a meeting on this, said the EC’s assistant director (public relations). Ashadul Haque
Meanwhile, the EC is also working on the preparation of an integrated journalistic policy draft for election news gathering ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. EC’s public relations wing is handling applications from observer organizations.
On Friday, the official of this department, Ashadul Haque, said that this time, 199 applications had been submitted within the scheduled time on February 2 and 11 more after the scheduled time. These applications will be scrutinized in the next 15–20 days. It will then be presented to the commission. A public notification will be issued within 15 days to find out whether there are any objections against those whose applications are successful in the preliminary selection.
The official said that if there is a complaint against any organization, then the honorable commission will call both parties for a hearing, and after the hearing, the commission will take a decision on the matter.
He said that the existing registered institutions expire on July 11. In that case, according to the action plan of the EC, the final decision in this regard will come by June.
The Kazi Habibul Awal Commission will elect the twelfth Parliament at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. The then-KM Nurul Huda Commission had registered 119 institutions for election monitoring for five years in 2018 before the last 11th Parliament elections.
EC officials said that, apart from the prescribed eligibility of applications for registration, the applications of organizations that have not observed any elections for the last five years (from December 2018 to December 2022) will be rejected. However, institutions that could not be registered in 2018 will be considered eligible if general or by-elections to Parliament and local government are held during the tenure.
