Staff Reporter :Over 4000 observers, including 33 foreigners, will monitor the three city corporation elections slated for April 28, an Election Commission (EC) source said.Besides, many other organisations have also applied for to monitor the poll as observers, he added.SM Asaduzzaman, Public Relations Officer of the EC Secretariat told The New Nation on Sunday that the foreign observers include 18 from Democracy International (DI), 10 from International Human Rights Commission and 5 from Japan Embassy. “Some 3704 observers from 39 local institutions have been given permission to monitor the city corporation polls,” he said.Besides, the USA, European Union and some international organisations have expressed their keen interest to monitor the poll as observers. Meanwhile, the leaders of both ruling Awami League and major opposition political party Bangladesh Nationalist Party have taken it as a challenge. For various reasons, elections of the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Dhaka South City Corporation and Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) are very important. Apart from this, different national and international observers are also keeping their close eyes on the election. However, no major untoward incident has yet taken place during the ongoing election campaign till date. In January 5 general elections, neither local nor international election observers had showed any interest to monitor the 10th parliamentary elections. The EC had invited a host of foreign election monitoring bodies to observe the general election, but none had responded.
