I will accept defeat if the election is fair and impartial: Barrister Fuad

Barrister Asaduzzaman Fuad, the AB Party nominated candidate for Barisal-3 constituency, has announced that if the election is truly fair and acceptable, he will not hesitate to accept defeat.

He gave this reaction to journalists after exercising his right to vote at Madhabpasha Chandradeep High School and College center in Babuganj upazila at 7:45 am on Thursday (February 12). Barrister Fuad mentioned that although the voting environment has been good so far, there is some apprehension and fear in the minds of the people. However, he is not in favor of boycotting the election without any logical reason but wants to stay in the voting field until the end.

Simultaneous voting began in 299 parliamentary constituencies across the country from 7:30 am today, which will continue until 4:30 pm, an hour longer than the scheduled time due to the referendum. 958,000 personnel have been deployed to ensure security in this election, including more than 108,000 members of the armed forces.

The Election Commission (EC) has imposed stricter restrictions on the use of technology this time; CCTV cameras have been installed in more than 90 percent of the nearly 43,000 centers and 25,700 body-worn cameras have been handed over to law enforcement officers. In addition, the 'Election Security App' and 333 hotline services are in operation to quickly report any irregularities.

127,71,793 voters are exercising their voting rights in this election. Of these, 64,825,361 are male voters and 62,885,200 are female voters. 1,232 voters of the third gender are also participating in this process.

Election statistics show that this is the first time that a large number of expatriate Bangladeshis have voted by post. According to the information received, out of 422,960 expatriate ballots, 270,038 ballots have already reached the returning officers, which will be added to the original votes during the final counting.

This is the highest number of political parties since 2008, that is, 51, which is the highest number since 2008. A total of 2,029 candidates from various parties, including BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Nagorik Party, are participating in the election, of which 80 are women candidates.

In addition to 55,000 domestic observers, 394 foreign observers and 197 international journalists are directly engaged in the field to monitor the election. As this is the first general election since the historic popular uprising in 2024, the world's attention is now on this democratic transformation of Bangladesh.

The EC Secretariat said that after the end of the voting, the counting will be completed in a transparent process at each center and the results will be immediately displayed on the center's notice board. It is expected that the complete results will be available by February 13 through the announcement of the results in stages.

No major untoward incident has been reported in other districts of the country including Barisal so far. There is immense curiosity across the country about this election and referendum held after a long reform process, and the common people are expecting a new democratic journey to begin through a transparent and participatory election.