22,000 local observers seek to monitor polls

A total of 22,000 local observers from 96 registered organisations have applied to monitor the January 7 national polls, according to the Election Commission.

EC Director (Public Relations) Shariful Alam said that local observers filed their applications, which were now being scrutinised.

"The number of local observers might slightly increase from 22,000 as some applications are yet to be scrutinised," he said.

He said following the scrutiny, these applications will be presented to the election commissioners for approval.

However, the number of local observers is lower than in the previous election, despite the fact that the number of polling places has increased since the previous election.

Ahead of the 2018 election, 34,671 local observers from registered election monitoring organisations applied, and the commission approved 25,920 local observers from 81 organisations to monitor the election.

EC will need to set up 42,500 polling centres for the January 7 polls, while there were 40,199 polling centres in the 2018 polls.

About 8,900 individuals monitored the 2014 election held in 147 seats. The rest of the 153 MPs were elected unopposed. There were 18,200 polling centres then.

Around 1.6 lakh local observers monitored the 2008 election, and there were 35,263 polling centres then.

In 2001 polls, the number of local observers was about 2.18 lakh. There were 29,978 polling centres then.

Based on the Representation of the People Order, the EC developed a policy for selecting local election observers.

The registration of local observers was introduced before the 9th parliamentary election in 2008.