It is a privilege and pleasure for the ECP to host this important Conference of the heads of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of this region which is a continuation of similar Conference held last year in Dhaka. Of course, it provides an opportunity to the Chief Election Managers of the countries of this region to get together to exchange views and benefit from each others' electoral experiences.
People living in this part of the world have many commonalities to share in the shape of civilisations, history and cultural values. We have inherited almost identical set of political values and practices. Democracy despite many obstacles and shortcomings is and will remain ultimate solution for political and socio-economic issues. We have seen that in our countries in spite of numerous hardships, the democracy has eventually emerged as victorious and that is because the electoral democracy is deeply rooted in the psyche of our people.
The political parties are electoral entities and the people tend to find election related activities of political parties meaningful and comprehensible. EMBs today have to face many challenges, both external as well as internal. To my mind, for our nations, the only panacea in the political context is the constitutionally-limited dispensation to govern the country and that the democratic institutions, come into being only through free, fair and transparent elections.
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