The government of Bangladesh strongly rejects the "biased and unjustified" statement issued by six international civil society organizations regarding the recently held national election, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.
The allegations raised in the statement are "false and baseless", said the ministry.
The preposterous calls for a fresh election do not commensurate with the acclamation poured on the government by the international community for conducting free, fair, credible and peaceful elections, it said on Saturday in a statement.
The six organizations - Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Asian Democracy Network (ADN), Capital Punishment Justice Project (Australia), and Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) - issued the statement on the 12th National Parliament Election held on January 7.
Foreign observers who monitored the elections on the ground called it "free, fair, transparent, and legitimate".
The foreign ministry said 1,534 candidates from 28 registered political parties and 436 independent candidates contested the election. The voter turnout was as high as 70% in many rural constituencies.
The national average turnout was about 42% because of comparatively lower voter turnout in the city areas.
The independent Electoral Commission conducted the elections very effectively and efficiently, the ministry said.
Despite challenges due to the unleashing of violence by the BNP in the lead-up to the election, the polling day unfolded with an unprecedented level of peace, marked by only a few isolated incidents at a few polling centers.
Many international election observers and journalists, who actively reported on the elections from the field, attested to this truth.
