A group of foreign observers has extolled the voting process in Bangladesh as free and fair.
“It's been a very fair and free process for people walking in,” Shaoquett Moselmane, who came from Australia to observe the election, said after visiting the polling centres in Dhaka College on Sunday.
“We can see there's a lot of good security and a very transparent process. So, it's so far for us, it's been a fair and free process,” he said, adding: “This is very important for us as international observers to see.”
He was accompanied by Jim Bates, a former US congressman, and Anders Nils Henry Nordin from Norway.
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After visiting the three centres in Dhaka College, they talked to the media at 11am.
Anders Nils Henry Nordin said they found the voting process peaceful, but found the turnout was very low.
Jim Bates said: “I was confused when I came here because everyone kept saying they expected a low voter turnout and I said well you only vote till 4pm and in the United States it takes three weeks to finish the voting.”
“They cast late ballots and it goes on for a month before and so the turnout is higher when you have days and months but you're just doing from 8am to 4pm. So, to say that I wonder who's playing, why are they playing games with the word ‘little turnout’ because you know from 8am to 4pm you're doing real good,” he said.
“So that's just something I don't know if you've come across that or not with your journalism because thank goodness for the journalists who exposed the truth because there's so many lies these days and the journalists tell the truth.”
