Staff Reporter :
Election Commissioner Brig Gen (Retd) Abdul Fazal Md Sanaullah said on Wednesday that multiple methods are needed to ensure the voting rights of expatriates.
“In the next parliamentary elections, expatriates will be included in the voting system of any category.”
Election Commissioner said this at a press conference on the expatriates’ voting process held at the media center of the capital’s EC building in Agargaon.
“Different ministries, NGOs, foreign aid agencies, including BUET and Dhaka University, participated in the Tuesday’s workshop at the Election Commission. Out of these, 10 groups presented their proposals separately. Hope that, we will be able to bring expatriates under the ambit of voting this time.”
EC Sanaullah said, “Chief adviser had mentioned granting voting rights to expatriates in his first speech. “We looked at 178 countries and found that 115 of them have provisions for their expatriate citizens to vote. The most commonly followed method is voting at embassies, followed by postal ballots and then online or proxy voting.”
“We have examined the advantages and disadvantages of three methods, out of 10 proposals. Expatriates will first have to register online. For Bangladesh, a single method won’t sufficient; rather, a hybrid approach will be necessary. Each method has its weaknesses. Mock testing will be required for all of them, he added.”
On Wednesday with the Election Commission (EC) has given a new party registration named Bangladesh Minority Janata Party (BMJP) with the electoral symbol of ‘Rocket’.
This brings the total number of registered political parties in Bangladesh to 50. The registration was granted to BMJP in compliance with a court directive, marking a significant milestone for the party.
“We have finally received our long-cherished registration certificate today. The dream has come true,” BMJP President Sukriti Kumar Mondal said after receiving the registration certificate from EC Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed at the NirbachanBhaban in the capital on Wednesday.
He said there are about three crore people belonging to minority communities. “We want to participate in politics, and now we have the right to do so. We have grassroots-level support, even at the union level,” said Mondal.
BMJP has been given registration number 55. The party actually applied for registration in 2018 but was not granted it at the time.
