- Dr Akbar Ali Khan, Regulatory Reforms Commission Chairman

“The thing I found most interesting was that there were definitely more women voters than men voters. I spoke to one voter called Rahima who was carrying a tiny baby. She told me that she was suffering from a leg injury and she had a small child but she was still adamant about voting. I asked her why voting was so important to her. She told me that she had very few rights in her life so when she was given an opportunity to exercise her right, she was not going to waste it.”

-Tulip Siddiq

“We don’t have any evidence of election engineering. I believe that other national and international observers also did not find such evidence. Our hope is that winner and losers will work together for the country.” – Head of the Commonwealth election observer group Cassam Uteem

“dear candidates for the 2008 bangladesh parliamentary election:

in case you are not aware, here is a small note to tell you that an election and holding power through a seat in the parliament, is no longer business as usual. tomorrow, any update from any blogger has the potential to reach the whole world.

this time, for the first time in your political history, bloggers are watching you. not only a few techie intellectuals. we are at least 30 000 bangla bloggers watching you. we blog through multiple blog communities and our writings are being read in nearly every country of the world.

we will support your efforts to build a strong and proud nation and share the good news with the world. however, we will also hold you accountable and report any misstep. blogs will never forget, bloggers will never be silenced, internet knows no borders. therefore, lets get it right this time, dear candidates. lets get it right.

- Arild Klokkerhaug, the Head of Opportunities of Somewherein

Candidate name- Mr. Monzur Alom. Symbol-pineapple.

“The candidate is purchasing vote as his nearest persons and relatives are going home to home and giving per person one hundred to two hundred Taka. Some centers are very risky: Yakub Ali school, Notunbazar primary school, Pahartali etc. Because his brother in law Mr. Babul Hoque lives in Mettailla para. Mettailla para is a very dangerous drug business area. Mozibul Hoque (Mozu), Nizam uddin are land robbers and drug businessmen. Mozu is a brother of Mr. Babul Hoque. So they can bring lot of garments girl for duplicate vote cast and vote center also can be captured. So please look after that specially.

Biplob Das,
Halisohor, Chittgong.

(Opinions are commenter’s own)

“AL, BNP and JI have upgraded their websites. BNP projected ads in the TV channels. Till now, I have got no message from any candidate but got a message to my mobile from GP to vote for joggo prarthy.

Thanks GP. We are in favor of honest and competent candidates.”

- An Ordinary Citizen

The New Nation

“As Bangladesh gears up for its first parliamentary elections in seven years on 29 December, the first ever computerized photo voter list in the south Asian country containing pictures of more than 80 million people is now complete after taking 11 months to compile with United Nations help.

An independent audit of the list by the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has concluded that the list was compiled with a “high degree of accuracy,” and no ‘ghost voters’ were found,” – UN News Center