Polls credibility won’t depend on EU’s decision on election mission: Shahriar Alam

State minister for foreign affairs Md Shahriar Alam on Thursday evening said the European Union’s decision on whether it sends or not its election observation mission will have no impact on the election and credibility of the elections, reports UNB.

Talking to reporters, he said that there is no scope to draw any conclusion through oversimplification of it.

"We have a very deep relationship with the European Union," Shahriar said, adding that the EU has its own challenges.

The State Minister said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not received any communication from the EU as of 6pm on Thursday.

He said the Election Commission will comment if they receive any message.

Whether BNP joins the election or not was reportedly a criteria for the EU to take decision on sending observers.

The European Union will not send its full-fledged election observation team to Bangladesh during the upcoming national election due to ‘budget constraint’, said Election Commission (EC) secretary Md Jahangir Alam on Thursday.

The Election Commission received a letter from the European Union (EU) as a follow-up to the recent visit by the Election Exploratory Mission.

In July this year, the mission from the European Union (EU) had a series of meetings including with the Election Commission and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The main objective of the Election Exploratory Mission was to assess the “advisability, usefulness and feasibility” of a possible EU Election Observation Mission for the upcoming parliamentary election, according to the EU Mission in Dhaka.

The task of this mission was to assess the scope, planning, budget, logistics and security of the main election observation mission.

The EU delegation met government representatives, election-related authorities, representatives of the international community, officials of various law enforcement agencies, political leaders, civil society and media representatives during their stay in Bangladesh.