Staff Reporter :
UK High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson yesterday said that fair and credible elections are a must to ensure effective democratic institutions of the country.
“A fair election must ensure that all parties are allowed to participate, everyone should be able to cast their vote freely, and the results of the election must be accepted by all parties,” he said.
Dickson came up with this remarks while addressing the “Meet The Ambassador” event hosted by the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) in collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Bangladesh at a city hotel in Dhaka on Monday.
Civil society members, entrepreneurs, and politicians from both ruling and opposition parties attended the programme.
“No foreign nation can tell Bangladesh how to conduct its election, and the demand for a fair election must come from the people of Bangladesh, said Dickson,” according a CGS statement.
Independent observers could be provided if the election commission allows to assist with the election
process, said the UK high commissioner.
In response to questions on Bangladesh’s trends of human rights violations, Dickson said there are concerns regarding the actions of Bangladesh’s security forces and the implementation of the Digital Security Act and these may affect the terms of upcoming Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) of the UK.
Under DCTS, the UK will provide Bangladesh and a few other developing nations greater duty-free and quota-free access to the UK market.
Bangladesh is uniquely poised to take advantage of this new scheme as strong bilateral trade with the UK has already been established.
He said adherence to the rule of law and democracy is an important principle to attract foreign investment, and that there is scope for improvement in the institutional quality of Bangladesh.
Dickson emphasized on diversifying Bangladesh’s export portfolio as the RMG market is particularly vulnerable to shifts in consumer demand.
He expressed interest in increasing the level of private sector investment from the UK by working to acquaint British investors with the post-LDC middle-income economy of Bangladesh.
CGS Chairman Dr Manjur Ahmed Chowdhury and Programme Coordinator Shadhan Kumar Das also spoke at the event moderated by its executive director Zillur Rahman.
