Amar Bangladesh Party, AB Party, met the four-member Election Exploratory Mission from the European Union on Saturday at the EU Delegation office.
AB Party team was led by Tajul Islam, Joint Convenor of the Party, Asaduzzaman Fuaad, Zubair Ahmed Bhuiyan, both barrister-at-law and Joint Member Secretary, Aminul Islam FCA, Senior Assistant Secretary and Nasreen Sultana Mily, barrister-at-law and Assistant Secretary of the party, were also present at the dialogue.
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The visiting delegation came to assess the feasibility, usefulness and advisability of deploying a full scale Election Observation Mission of the European Union in the forthcoming parliamentary election. The team is expected to submit a written report to the EU with appropriate recommendations shortly.
AB Party, in its written briefing, reminded the EU delegation that out of 11 elections, 7 were held under incumbents which were sadly not considered free, fair, participatory and credible while, on the other hand, the remaining 4 elections were held under non-partisan election-time government which were largely accepted as free, fair and credible. The difference was all about the neutral caretaker government which made all the difference in our electoral history.
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The briefing further added that in 1996, the whole country had a unanimous ‘political settlement’ on how to conduct an election under a neutral caretaker government which was arbitrarily repealed in June 2011 by this regime using a Supreme Court order as a false and fraudulent pretext.
The regime also failed to listen to the recommendations by the special parliamentary committee, civil society members, learned amicus curiae, and political parties not to overturn the thirteenth amendment.
“Our history is a witness that no election would be free, fair and credible without being held under a caretaker government which the AB Party endorses. It’s sad to see that the country is losing its sense of direction, after good 52 years, particularly in the context of Indo-Pacific regional security, the AB party claimed.
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AB Party believes that People’s aspiration is to be part of the democratic partners, aligning with the free world and rules-based order as opposed to partnering with authoritarian regimes of the world and regime, the briefing added. An elected government is simply conditional to democracy, rule of law, human rights and good governance.