Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora took over as the new Chair of the Forum of the Election Management Bodies of South Asia (FEMBoSA) for the year 2020 at the annual meeting of poll management bodies of the SAARC countries.

FEMBoSA is a regional association Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of SAARC countries and has eight members.

Taking over the Chair from Bangladesh, Arora said that in a democracy, power is won and legitimised only by regular elections, based on the universal, equal, direct and freely expressed suffrage. Strong participatory and inclusive democracies are better able to ensure good governance and empowerment of all the citizens, he said.

In September 2019, ECI had taken over as Chair of the 115 member Association of World Election Bodies for 2019-21 term.

What is FEMBoSA?

Forum of Election Management Bodies of South Asia (FEMBoSA) is a regional establishment to increase mutual cooperation in respect to the  common interests of the SAARC’s Election Management Bodies (EMBs). 

In 2010, for the first time, Bangladesh Election Commission organized a regional meeting titled ‘Meeting on Cooperation of Election Commissions in the South Asia Region’.

It was decided that an organisation representing those countries should be established. Consequently, the Annual General Meetings of the Organisation were held in the member countries.

FEMBoSA was officially founded at the third conference of heads of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of SAARC countries held at New Delhi from April 30 to May 2, 2012 through a unanimously adopted resolution on May 1, 2012 to establish the Forum.

In 2013, the logo of the designated forum prepared by Bangladesh Election Commission was accepted and the Rules of Procedure for Meetings of the FEMBoSA were approved.

The objectives of FEMBoSA are: 

1) Promote contact among the EMBs of SAARC countries. 

2) Share experiences with a view to learning from each other. 

3) Cooperate with one another in enhancing the capabilities of the Election Management Bodies towards conducting free and fair elections. 

The member countries of the FEMBoSA are the EMBs of  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

New Delhi hosts 10th annual meeting 

The 10th annual meeting of FEMBoSA was held in New Delhi on January 24. 

A New Delhi Resolution was unanimously adopted at the meeting by the seven FEMBoSA members present. The members resolved to implement the Work Plan for 2020 as approved by the member EMBs. The Work Plan for 2020 on ‘Use of Technology in Elections’ calls for members to undertake projects and initiatives on various aspects of use of technology in elections and present a report on their experiences and challenges faced in this regard at the next FEMBoSA Meeting.

The Election Commission signed an agreement with the Independent National Electoral Commission of Afghanistan for cooperation in the field of election management on the sidelines of the international conference on ‘Strengthening Institutional Capacity’.

The poll panel also signed an MoU with Independent Authority for Election in Tunisia for cooperation in election management, a spokesperson said.

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