Bangladesh Polls: NDI, IRI to deploy joint technical assessment team

The International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) will deploy a joint team to Bangladesh to conduct a "limited technical assessment" of electoral violence conditions before, during, and after the country’s January 7, 2024 parliamentary elections. 

The team will include five long-term analysts who will stay in Bangladesh for six to eight weeks, according to a joint statement received from Paulina Chavez Alonzo, Press Secretary, National Democratic Institute on Wednesday. 

The technical assessment will include a thematic analysis of different types of election violence, including inter and intra-party violence, violence targeting women and other marginalized groups, and online harassment and threats, as well as the role of state institutions in addressing these types of violence. 

The assessment will seek to evaluate the drivers and implications of election violence during the election cycle and provide constructive recommendations to reduce violence in future elections. 

Following the conclusion of the electoral process NDI and IRI will produce a technical assessment report on electoral violence.

This deployment follows a joint pre-election assessment mission (PEAM) that IRI and NDI conducted from October 8 to 11, 2023. 

The observations from the PEAM informed the structure and scope of the technical assessment, which will be conducted in accordance with the laws of Bangladesh and consistent with the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, which was endorsed in 2005 at the United Nations. 

NDI and IRI are nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations that support and strengthen democratic institutions and practices worldwide. 

The Institutes have collectively observed more than 200 elections in more than 50 countries over the last 30 years.