Polls monitoring by foreigners should end: Momen
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen yesterday said he believes the system of foreigners monitoring elections ought to be discontinued.
He made this comment while talking to reporters after a meeting with a delegation of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a US government-supported organisation.
"I think the [foreign election monitoring] system should be stopped. We should have confidence in our people. The people of Bangladesh liberated the country. No one liberated us with a certificate. Why do we need to authenticate it [election] by others?" he said.
"We are a mature democracy, a developed democracy. We have given blood for it. Very few countries have done so. Why do we need others' certificates?" he said.
A three-member election observer delegation of IRI met with the minister at his residence in Sylhet city's Dhopadighirpar area in the evening.
The members of the delegation are IRI's senior advisor for Asia Pacific Geoffrey Macdonald, senior programme manager Amitab Ghosh and programme manager David Hoggstra.
Regarding the meeting, the minister said, "The observers asked for suggestions on how to reduce the bitterness between AL and BNP in the future. I said that there should be dialogues between the parties, and BNP should do more people-focused, issue-based politics."
"Another topic of discussion was the BNP's boycott. I said that this was because of their lack of internal dialogue," he said.
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