BOYRA (Bangladesh): Bangladesh is set to have a fair election this year with a new voters’ list replacing one critics said had millions of fake names, an official of the UN agency funding voter registration said on Sunday.

Bangladesh is to hold elections by the end of 2008 under a “road map” set out by the army-backed interim government, which has ruled under a state of emergency since taking charge in January, 2007 following months of political violence.

“We have trust in Bangladesh that a credible democratic election will be held by the end of the year,” Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told reporters.

Dervis, who arrived in Dhaka on Saturday on a three-day visit, was speaking after observing the registration process at a centre in Boyra, a remote village 320 km south of Dhaka.The UNDP has been channelling a $50 million fund from nine donors to the Bangladesh government to create the new voter list and issue registration cards with photographs to cut fraud.

Brigadier-General Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, briefing Dervis at the voter registration centre, said so far more than 55 million voters had been registered and 59 per cent of the total task had been completed.—Reuters