Around 15 million expatriate Bangladeshis are deprived of voting rights.
Analysts feel that to link expatriate Bangladeshis to mainstream development in the country, granted of voting rights is essential.
Though many governments have promised in the past, the voting right of Bangladeshis living abroad has not seen the light of day.
Around 120 countries in the world have enfranchised overseas citizens.
In the UK, expatriates have carried out campaigns for voting rights. Leading figure of Greater Sylhet Council, K M Abu Taher Chowdhury, told Bangla Tribune, “First, the expatriates should be given national id cards or NID; once they get this, granting voting privileges will be easier.”
A legal framework was conceived in 2008 to give expatriates the right to vote but no progress happened on it, he said.
While several politicians have called for a separate cell, a foreign office consular says that time has come to think of dual nationality. Currently, dual citizens can neither be a candidate nor a voter.
Therefore, voting rights can be given to those who are not dual citizens, opined the diplomat.
Postal vote can be an option through which ballot papers can be sent to voters, which can be posted back, with the voted paper, back to the country. Bhutan, India, Maldives have the voting facility for expats while the UK has proxy and postal vote system.
A Bangladesh diplomat posted to London said, “A few months ago, the high commission was attacked and identifying the vandals could have been possible if there was the system to provide NID to expats.”
He also supported the postal voting system, followed by efforts to create an awareness among Bangladeshis living abroad.
In 2008, two election commissioners, Suhul Hossain and M Sakhawat Hossain visited the UK to look into the possibility of including UK based expatriates into the voting list.
Consequently, the government amended the voter list laws which stated that an expatriate would be a voter in the area where he lived before going abroad or from his/her father’s residential area. Later, in 2014, the Rakibuddin Commission also took initiatives which fizzled out in the end.
Jatiya Party presidium member, A T U Taj Rahman feels that one crore votes of expatriates are equal to the votes won by more than 35 MPs.
While the political parties are willing, voting rights cannot be ensured due to bureaucratic complications, he commented.