Expat voting: Allowed, but left out
A Bangladeshi expat in Ireland, who is studying at Dublin City University, was highly enthusiastic about exercising his franchise in the national polls.
As he could not figure out how to vote himself, the 29-year-old student contacted the nearest Bangladesh embassy -- the Bangladeshi High Commission in the UK --through emails. However, the embassy didn't respond.
Ultimately, he couldn't vote in the 12th parliamentary elections.
Like him, who wished to stay anonymous, many other Bangladeshi expatriates across the globe said they missed the opportunity to exercise their voting rights due to a lack of information and awareness initiatives by their respective embassies.
Most of them said they didn't know about the postal ballot system and those who knew said they had no clue about how to send those or the deadline of sending those.
Bangladeshi expatriates, who make up around 7.5 percent of the country's population and 10 percent of its voters, are allowed to vote in the polls.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, more than 1.26 crore Bangladeshis have gone abroad since 1976, while the International Organization for Migration's report published in 2021 estimates that about 2.4 million Bangladeshi diaspora are living mostly in developed countries.
Since 2010, Bangladesh has introduced a postal ballot system to preserve the constitutional rights of this huge segment of citizens.
However, the expats say, even after more than a decade, there is hardly any government initiative to involve them in the democratic process.
The Daily Star reached out to over a dozen expatriates across the globe and they said lack of awareness drives by embassies to inform the expats about the procedure or timeline of polls are depriving them of their rights.
Navid Sharif, 25, a student of law at the University of South Wales in the UK, said he was aware of the postal ballot system but didn't know exactly how to complete the procedure from there.
"Given the chance, I would have exercised my right to vote. But I was not sure how to do so. As far as I know, the Bangladesh High Commission here didn't do much to create awareness among expatriates regarding the procedure and the deadline. At least I failed to notice any such thing," said Navid.
"We, Bangladeshi students at USW, talked about the polls. Most of us would have voted if we knew what to do," he added.
This is not only true for the UK, which hosts around 8 lakh Bangladeshis. Expats in many countries said they saw no campaign or publicity carried out by the Bangladesh missions there.
Following the polls schedule announcement on November 15 for this year's polls, the Election Commission said Bangladeshi expatriates could exercise their franchise based on Article 27 of the Representation of the People Order.
For this, they were directed to apply for a postal ballot paper within 15 days of the announcement of the election schedule to the returning officer of their respective constituency by providing the necessary information, and then the ROs were supposed to send a ballot paper to the expatriate voters.
The deadline ended on December 1.
The EC also said Bangladesh missions abroad would extend the necessary cooperation in this regard.
However, the respective embassies or high commissions did not seem to be very cooperative in this regard, claimed many expatriates.
Aashna Chowdhury, 28, a student at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany, said she would have exercised her voting rights if she had received instructions.
"However, I had no idea and the Bangladeshi embassy here didn't do anything to notify us or enlighten us, and then when I got to know, we were well past the deadline," Aashna told The Daily Star.
"Before the polls, I visited the embassy to work on some of my documents and tried to talk about the election with the officials then, but they showed no interest," she said.
Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, Shelly Naz, a former deputy director at the Department of Social Services of social welfare ministry and a PhD aspirant at Australia's Swinburne University of Technology, faced a similar situation.
"It would have been great if I could cast my vote from Australia. I was trying to figure out how to do so, but I couldn't find any information on this when I surfed through the site of the Bangladeshi High Commission in Canberra," Shelly, 51, told this newspaper.
Meanwhile, the government marked National Expatriates Day for the first time last year on December 30, intending to involve them more in the country's development.
Abu Taher, 63, an expatriate in Qatar for the last 37 years, could not manage to exercise his voting right once in his life.
Needless to say, he failed this time too.
"I almost forgot about the election as there were almost no discussions regarding it among Bangladeshis this time, which was not the case in previous elections. I don't think the Bangladesh embassy in Qatar has taken any initiative to involve us in this democratic process and educate us regarding exercising our franchise. Otherwise, I would have known about it," said Taher.
When this correspondent told him about the existing postal ballot system for expatriates and its procedure, he said he was willing to through the complicated process.
"However, the procedure could be easier with a polling station set up here in Doha for us (expatriates) by the Bangladesh embassy. Or, the embassy can send postal ballots directly to us," he added.
Many others, particularly those living in the Middle East, echoed Taher, as they were disappointed to miss out on voting in the election yet again.
However, the Bangladesh High Commission in London claimed to have done its best to involve expatriates in the 12th parliamentary polls.
Contacted, the high commission said the EC provided them with directives regarding the postal ballot procedure for expatriate voters and their eligibility.
The high commission said, over the last five years, it has stayed connected with the British-Bangladeshi community and arranged various events to raise awareness about diaspora voting procedures, and deadlines.
It claimed to have shared polls-related information with local media and through the commission's social media handles.
The high commission also claimed to have uploaded all the directives of the EC and the timetable of the polls to make the expats aware and encourage them to cast their postal votes.
Regarding the accusation of not responding to an email from a Bangladeshi student in Ireland, the high commission claimed that it did not receive such an email.
"We are committed to responding to all queries from expatriates living in the UK and Ireland," it said.
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