Awami League activists celebrate their party's victory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. A Liberal MP and a Conservative senator are offside with the Trudeau government's position on Bangladesh's recent election. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Mahmud Hossain Opu
OTTAWA – A Liberal MP and a Conservative senator are offside with the Trudeau government’s position on Bangladesh’s recent election.
Officials in that country invited Ottawa MP Chandra Arya and Sen. Victor Oh to observe the Jan. 7 election, which the main opposition party boycotted, arguing the state would not hold a free vote.
At a press conference in Dhaka the day of the election both parliamentarians said the vote was “free and fair.”
But the next day Canada’s high commission in Bangladesh posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that any Canadian election observers are acting independently and that their views are not endorsed by the Government of Canada.
Global Affairs Canada later released its own statement, saying the vote “has fallen short of the principles of democracy and freedom.”
Nipa Banerjee, a University of Ottawa who has extensively researched Bangladesh, says the country is not a full democracy but should be praised for lifting people out of poverty and avoiding wide-scale conflict.
Neither Arya nor Oh have yet responded to a request for comment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 11, 2024.
