The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

Two NGOs have raised concerns about the objectivity of election observers, who termed the recent local government polls "fair and credible", after they worked with the Election Commission to assist in voter awareness and registration campaigns.

The Election Working Group (EWG), an umbrella group of NGO observers, received over $2 million for their assistance, while the same NGOs turned observers and assessed the EC's performance in holding the city corporation and municipality polls, they said.

NGOs Janipop and Odhikar, who had been two partners of the 33-member EWG, have protested the "conflict of interest" and refrained from working as "agents of the EC" for voter registration activities.

"We protested the EWG decision of working as an agent of the EC to take voters to the registration centre, because we believed such work would hamper the independence of election monitoring," acting director of Odhikar Nasiruddin Elan told bdnews24.com Thursday.

Top polls monitoring group FEMA however has a different point of view.

"We worked as the agents of the donor (The Asia Foundation), not of the Election Commission," Munira Khan, president of FEMA, told bdnews24.com.

FEMA (Fair Election Monitoring Association) was one of the component NGOs of the EWG to take part in the voter registration activities.

Human rights organisation Odhikar opposed the awareness campaign activities from the very beginning, saying the EWG should be restricted to election observation and monitoring only.

Nasiruddin said that it was not possible for the NGOs to observe the polls impartially while it received monetary benefits for other electoral activities.

"Janipop was first in favour of assisting in the EC's awareness campaigns by taking people to voting centres, but later it refrained from taking in part in such activities and only acted as observers," Janipop chairman Prof Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah told bdnews24.com.

"It is not possible to be agents and evaluators at the same time. It is not moral. So, we observed the polls only," said Kalimullah.

The Asia Foundation formed the Election Working Group in the middle of 2006 as a common platform for observing the national elections scheduled for Jan 22, 2007.

As the Jan 22 polls were annulled, the NGOs shifted from their original objectives of monitoring the polls and turned to capacity building.

The EWG signed a memorandum of understanding last year with the EC to undertake voter awareness activities, including guiding people to voter registration centres and other works.

"Once you sign a MoU with the Election Commission, you work under the commission," said Prof Kalimullah.

Election Commissioner Mohammed Sohul Hossain told bdnews24.com Thursday: "The Election Working Group did sign the MoU with the EC to take voters to the registration centres."

Hossain said the working group received the funds for its works, according to the MoU, from the Asia Foundation.

Jerome Sayre, assistant representative of the Asia Foundation, told bdnews24.com: "The Asia Foundation through the EWG spent about $2 million in assisting the Election Commission in the voters' registration programme."

The donor agency provided a total of $4.2 million dollars for EWG's election programme, the remaining $2.2 million going towards the group's observing activities.

Munira Khan of FEMA said the 33-member EWG could and did perform "neutrally" in observing the recent city corporation and the municipality polls despite working with the EC.

Meanwhile, most of the EWG NGOs did not have experience in polls observation.

The working group's NGOs, mostly involved in microcredit activities, human rights, environmental and other fields, are: ACD, ADD, Banchte Shekha, BCDJC, BDS, BMSP, Coast Trust, Dak Diye Jai, Democracywatch, FIVDB, GKS, Greenhill, GUK, IED, Jagoroni Chakra Foundation, Khan Foundation, Light House, MMC, MSS, Nobolok, NDP, NRDS, PSKS, Rights Jessore, Rupantar, SDS, Solidarity, Srizony, Uttaran and Wave Foundation.