Election commission has primarily selected 68 private organisations to give registration as “poll monitoring organisations” ahead of the upcoming 12th parliament election.
The EC on Tuesday published the list of the organisations asking people to inform it in writing any claim or objections about the organisations within the next 15 days.
The EC’s list shows that two much-talked about organisations – Election Monitoring Forum (EMF) and SAARC Human Rights Foundation – were not considered as eligible to get the registration. EMF chairman Abed Ali is the secretary general of SAARC Human Rights Foundation.
SAARC Human Rights Foundation was criticised as it brought in several inexperienced foreigners as poll monitors in the last (11th) parliament election. This time Election Monitoring Forum brought several foreigners in the country a few days ago and introduced them as election observers.
EC said the clams and objections will be settled through hearing within the stipulated time. Then the registration will be given to the organisations. The organisations that would get the registration will have the opportunity to observe the 12th parliamentary election.
EC sources said it gave registration to 118 organisations before the 11th parliamentary election in 2018. The tenure of their registration has already ended. That is why it called for new applications in January this year. As many as 199 organisations applied by 2 February, the last date of application. Later, the EC accepted 11 more applications.
The concerned committee of the EC secretariat presented a list of 94 organisations before the EC after a primary scrutiny. Of them, the EC primarily selected 68 organisations to give registration. Of them, 29 got registration in 2018.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, election commissioner Md Ahsan Habib Khan said the EC secretariat presented the list after verifying the necessary information and data about the organisations that applied. The commission selected 68 organisations as poll monitors following the guidelines in this regard.
The registered organisations can observe the national and local level elections.