Poll officials barred from campaigning for or against referendum: EC

The Election Commission has instructed all officials involved in the 13th parliamentary election and referendum not to campaign either in favour of or against the referendum.

Election Commissioner Anwarul Islam Sarkar told journalists this on Tuesday at the commission office in Agargaon, Dhaka.

When asked about government-led campaigning on the referendum, he initially declined to comment. Later, he said the electoral environment this time is more transparent than in any previous election. He added that voters will come to polling centres with full confidence in the commission and that the EC will be able to overcome all concerns surrounding the election.

Meanwhile, the EC said postal ballots have reached destination countries for 766,862 expatriate voters who registered through the Postal Vote BD mobile app. Of them, 493,920 voters have received their ballots.

OCV-SDI project team leader Salim Ahmad Khan said that as of 10:30am on January 27, 425,788 expatriate voters had already cast their votes. Among them, 370,322 submitted ballots through post offices or mailboxes in their respective countries, while 21,508 completed ballots have reached Bangladesh.

He added that a total of 1,533,683 voters, including both domestic and expatriate voters, have registered through the Postal Vote BD app to vote in the election and referendum.