EU's small, four-man election observers team to arrive in November: AL presidium member
The EU team will leave the country after the polls end
A small, four-member team of election observers of the European Union (EU) will arrive in Bangladesh in November to monitor the 12th parliamentary elections.
The EU had sent a full-fledged mission in the 2008 elections when it deployed the largest international observation mission in Bangladesh with 150 observers from 25 EU Member States, plus Norway and Switzerland.
The four-member team that will be sent will comprise experts.
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"The EU team will leave the country after the polls end," Awami League Presidium member Lt Col (Retd) Muhammad Faruk Khan told reporters today (15 October).
He said representatives of ten EU countries informed the Awami League about sending an election observation team during a meeting at the EU Ambassador to Bangladesh Charles Whiteley's Gulshan residence this afternoon.
"We have been told that the EU will send a small expert group to monitor the 12th parliamentary election. They will leave the country after the election is over," Faruk Khan said.
The meeting, led by Faruk Khan, started at 11:30am and continued for an hour-and-a-half.
Earlier on 21 September, the European Union decided not to send a full team of observers during Bangladesh's upcoming national elections citing budgetary constraints, Election Commission Secretary Md Jahangir Alam told media, quoting an email by the EU to the Election Commission.
According to an EC official, the email said, "At the present time, it is not sufficiently clear whether the necessary conditions will be met at the point in time when the elections take place.
"The EU is currently exploring other options to accompany the electoral process," the email further said.
EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Nabila Massrali told had then told TBS that the Election Exploratory Mission (ExM) sent to Bangladesh by the European Union (EU) between 6-12 July 2023 had determined that EU election observers for the upcoming parliamentary elections "would not serve for its purpose this time."
The EU did not send any observers in the last two national elections in 2014 and 2018.
