Diplomatic Correspondent

A delegation of three observers from Russia has arrived in Bangladesh to monitor the general parliamentary elections to be held on January 7, 2024. Andrei Shutov, the head of the delegation and a member of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, told a TASS correspondent in a phone call that the elections in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh are a matter of interest for the whole world.

"Three Russian observers have arrived today. These elections are of great interest. Currently about 200 representatives of foreign countries have already been registered here," Shutov said.

He added that the current Bangladeshi government demonstrates the transparency of the electoral system and aims at ensuring transparency principle of the electoral process in order to show that the elections are transparent and legitimate.

"We will be actively monitoring polling stations and visit several of them in Dhaka to see how voting is going on. We will observe the activities of various political parties and voters as well as the organization of the electoral process at each polling station. In other words, we will monitor all the parameters of the voting process," Shutov said.

He added that the Russian delegation has become the first election observers in Bangladesh of the current composition of the Russian Central Election Commission. "We have wide experience in providing international election observation, we have visited a number of countries and are ready to use the accumulated experience in order to estimate the election results in Bangladesh. We also plan to communicate with our colleagues, international observers, from the CIS countries, China and the others," Shutov said.

In the upcoming general parliamentary elections, the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, the leader of the Awami League party, Sheikh Hasina, intends to seek re-election for the fourth time. The main opposition force is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which launched an active campaign of street protests last summer, demanding the resignation of the current prime minister.