Parliamentary Elections
The European Union observed the parliamentary elections held in Bangladesh on June 12th 1996 . These elections were won by Bangladesh Awami League after BNP was forced to dissolve the parliament and hold impartial elections under the caretaker government.
This was one of the first decisions of EU Common Foreign and Security Policy after the establishment of the EU competence by the Maastricht Treaty. Before 2000, election observations were deployed and formated on an ad hoc political basis.
Precise criteria whether to deploy or not, as well as detailled working structure and methodology were defined in the EC Communication COM2000(199).
