Representatives from election bodies in over 50 countries will congregate in Bengaluru to share their electoral experience with programmes connected to the Fourth General Assembly of the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) starting on Monday. Incidentally, India will take over as A-WEB’s chair for 2019–21.
While the international conference on ‘Initiatives and Challenges of Social Media and Information Technology in Elections’, hosted by the Election Commission of India, will be held on Wednesday, representatives from over 50 countries will join a three-day meeting starting on Monday.
“The ECI has been very closely associated with the process of the formation of A-WEB since 2011–12 and has been its executive board member since its inception in 2013,” Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha told presspersons here on Sunday. “By far, this is the largest congregation of delegates. Over 120 participants from more than 50 countries will join the A-WEB events,” he added.
Currently, the A-WEB has 115 members and 20 regional associations/ organisations as associate members. The members include 24 from Asia, 37 from Africa, 31 from America, 17 from Europe, and six from Oceania. The ECI will continue to remain on the executive board of the A-WEB for 2021–23 in its capacity as immediate former chair of the A-WEB, a release stated.
Mr. Sinha said India had always been proactive in terms of international partnerships. “India has the largest democracy of the world. India has been a role model on the world forum. India has been providing training and capacity-building programmes to more than 90 countries.” All election management bodies across the world face similar challenges on the election front, he said, and added that these come up for discussion in international forums to understand the challenges of one another. “India is also learning from others and others are learning from India.”
On whether the “one nation, one election” concept would be a part of the discussions, Mr. Sinha said though these issues are discussed, decisions are not taken in one day. Each country would have its own model, he added.