The Election Commission has taken an initiative to introduce a voter registration system for non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) as over one crore Bangladesh nationals are now staying in various countries of the world.

The Commission plans to start the voter enrolment process initially in Saudi Arab, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia — the three largest destinations of Bangladeshi expatriates, reports the UNB.

The EC is going to arrange a workshop on February 27 next at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) here to receive suggestions and opinions from stakeholders, particularly the diplomats deployed in Bangladesh missions stationed in the countries that house a larger number of Bangladeshis.

After receiving suggestions, the Election Commission will take the final steps in this regard.

Though the Commission has not fixed any timeline for implementing its initiative, it expects that the voter enrolment process can be launched by this year in some countries.

‘We’re trying our best to introduce voter enrolment system for Bangladeshi expatriates in foreign countries as quick as possible. We’ve already worked out technical matters,’ said Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury.

The Commission has taken the initiative to ease the expatriates’ hazards in the voter registration process as many of them have to return to Bangladesh for a short period of time and they ultimately can’t be voters for their time constraint, he told UNB.

Participating in the EC’s dialogue last year, many political parties suggested the Commission to make voters the expatriates going abroad, he said.

He said a workshop will be held on February 27 with some 100 participants, including top diplomats from Bangladeshi missions in foreign lands, officials at the Expatriates Welfare and Oversees Employment Ministry and other agencies concerned.

‘We’ll take our next steps and shape the modalities after receiving suggestions from the workshop,’ said Shahadat Hossain.

The Commission is preparing four technical teams for Saudi Arab, two for the UAE and one for Malaysia to enrol expatriates as voters there initially and other countries in phases with the help of Bangladesh missions, EC officials said.

They said it will be possible to start registering expatriates as voters going abroad under a pilot project in March-April next.

Some 1.15 crore Bangladeshis went to 157 countries across the world since 1976.

According to the statistics provided by the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), a total of 1,14,64,943 Bangladeshi jobseekers went abroad from 1976 to 2017.

Of them, the highest 33.93 lakh Bangladeshi jobseekers went to Saudi Arab, while 23.65 lakh to the UAE, 13.56 lakh to Oman, 8.81 lakh to Malaysia, 6.91 lakh to Singapore, 6.81 lakh to Qatar, 5.89 lakh to Kuwait and 4.10 lakh to Bahrain.

In 2017, total 10.09 lakh Bangladeshi jobseekers went abroad. Of them, the highest 5,51,308 lakh jobseekers went to Saudi Arab, while 99,787 to Malaysia, 89,074 to Oman, 82,012 to Qatar, 49,604 to Kuwait and 40,401 to Singapore.

Some 12 lakh Bangladeshis are expected to go to various countries of the world in the current year, 2018.