"It appears that Sheikh Hasina is heading for a landslide victory in a free and fair election observed by hundreds of foreign and thousands of local observers at a time when Bangladesh faces some unprecedented economic, political and security challenges," said Farooq Sobhan, a former foreign secretary, who had supported the caretaker government's crackdown on politics two years ago.
"It appears that Sheikh Hasina is heading for a landslide victory in a free and fair election observed by hundreds of foreign and thousands of local observers at a time when Bangladesh faces some unprecedented economic, political and security challenges," said Farooq Sobhan, a former foreign secretary, who had supported the caretaker regime's crackdown on politics two years ago.
Because elected leaders and runner-up candidates may differ in age at last election, observed remaining life years may be affected by age related mortality differences alone.
"We've already picked up two seats and we haven't even had an election," observed Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, who was a main architect of the redistricting.
Federal observers are tasked with observing poll worker and voter conduct at polling places during an election and observing election officials tabulate the ballots.
None of the six previous post-Soviet elections observed in Uzbekistan by ODHIR monitors were deemed democratic and fair.
The European Union which have sent one of the biggest Election Observe Missions (EOM) to the previous two national elections have already decided not to observe this balloting.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party claimed Wednesday that its running tally of votes put it ahead in all nine governorates that voted this week, basing its claims on the reports of its election monitors observing the counts.
"There's nothing for us to fear from having Russian observers observing our election," he told reporters.
That was the pattern that election experts observed in the 2009 presidential elections, where more than a million ballots were thrown out because of voting irregularities.
