Around 180 foreign observers from 35 countries so far have applied to the Election Commission seeking approval to observe the 12th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) election slated for January 7, 2024.
Besides, 30 other officials from different countries as expected to come to Bangladesh as the election observers.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) spokesperson Seheli Sabrin gave this information at the weekly briefing of the ministry on Thursday.
Sabrin said journalists from international media outlets have also applied to the Election Commission to cover the polls.
“The Election Commission is scrutinising the applications of foreign journalists through a specific process. Once the process is done, their accreditation process will start,” she said.
Some of the journalists have been informed through email that they can apply for visa now, Sabrin said.
In response to a question regarding the allocation of budget for foreign observers, Seheli Sabrin said, Bangladesh Election Commission is in the process of providing allocation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the management of international observers.
According to the Election Commission officials, over 1,800 candidates from at least 28 political parties and a large number of independent candidates are contesting the polls in 300 seats across the country.
Alongside the deployment of personnel from the Bangladesh Army, over 7.5 lakh personnel from different law-enforcement and security agencies will be engaged in view of holding the JS polls in a free, fair and peaceful manner.
Of them, 1,82,091 will be deployed from the Bangladesh Police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), 46,876 from the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), 5,16,000 from the Ansar and VDP, and 2,350 from the Coast Guard.
Besides, 300 Judicial Enquiry Committees have been working on the field to maintain the electoral code of conduct while 802 executive magistrates will remain active for mobile court operations.
The EC official sources said, the number of total polling centres is 42,103 and total members of voters is 11,96,81,633. Of the total voters, 6,07,71,000 are males, 5,89,19,202 are females and 825 are trans-genders.
Besides, a total of 9,09,529 officials and employees are going to be engaged in the polls duty. Of them 4,06,364 are presiding officers, 2,87,722 assistant presiding officers and 5,75,443 polling officers.
