EC registers one more election observer

The Election Commission (EC) has registered another local organisation as election observer to monitor the upcoming 12th parliamentary elections.

With the addition of the Movement for Social Justice, previously named Human Rights Watch Commission, in the list, a total of 67 organisations have been granted the registration to act as election observers, the EC said in a notice on Tuesday (10 October).

The Movement for Social Justice secured the registration after an objection regarding its earlier name was settled.

The Election Commission registers poll monitoring organisations for a period of five years.

A total of 201 organisations applied for EC registration this time. Out of these, 68 were shortlisted.  Of the shortlisted organisations, objections were raised against the Human Rights Watch Commission and Rupnagar Education Health Foundation (RIHAF) regarding their names.

Meanwhile, compared to 2018, the number of observers has decreased by half this year, prompting the EC to call for applications a second time.

So far, a total of 149 organisations have applied for the registration. The applicants include a large number of organisations that were rejected in the first phase.

EC has been registering observers for poll monitoring since 2008 with 138 companies registered that year. In 2018, the EC registered 118 organisations as observers.