The Election Commission (EC) will hold a meeting with the pre-election delegation of the United States in Dhaka regarding the general situation of the upcoming 12th national elections.
The meeting will be held on Tuesday (October 10) at 11 am in the meeting room of the Election Commission. Other election commissioners will be in the meeting led by the Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal. It is not yet known how many members of the US pre-election delegation will attend the meeting. This was confirmed by EC Director (Public Relations) Shariful Islam.
Shariful Islam told Barta24.com that the pre-election delegation of the United States will meet with the EC on October 10 to verify the feasibility of sending observers to the national elections held at the end of December this year or at the beginning of the new year. In the meeting, the overall preparation of the election and how the election observers will work and various laws and regulations will be informed by the EC.
Meanwhile, the pre-election delegation in the United States arrived in Dhaka Saturday evening. The team will stay in Bangladesh till October 13. During this time, apart from the Election Commission, it is known that they will hold meetings with various political parties, government agencies, citizen representatives and other circles on election-related issues.
The US-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) will jointly conduct an independent and impartial pre-election survey mission. The delegation consists of 7 international experts.
Before this, the pre-election observer delegation of the European Union visited Dhaka on July 8-23 this year. They returned to their country after meeting with various circles. Later, the EU stated that there is no environment to observe the upcoming national elections in Bangladesh. That is why they will not send election observation team. They can only send research teams of limited size to collect election data.
According to EC sources, all work is being progressed with the aim of announcing the schedule in the first week of November this year. Voting will be held from the end of December to the first week of January.
According to the latest voter update of 2022, the total number of voters in the country is 11 crore 91 lakh 51 thousand 440 people. Among them 6 crore 4 lakh 45 thousand 724 male voters. And women voters are 5 crore 87 lakh 4 thousand 879 people. Besides, there are 837 third gender voters. This number is likely to increase as opportunities for inclusion of younger voters are created. About 10 lakh polling officers will be appointed in the upcoming 12th election.