EC Anup Chandra Pandey said that though elections are key to democracy, the quality of functional efficiency of conducting elections by EMBs in turn depends on their effectiveness in addressing challenges and maintaining independence.

EC Pandey while highlighting the emerging challenges like polarization, populism, voter apathy faced by EMBs globally, emphasised the need for mutual cooperation, continuous engagement and knowledge sharing on a regular basis in a structured manner to address these challenges.

Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey presided over the concluding ceremony of the two day international conference on ‘Role, Framework & Capacity of EMBs’ as the lead for the Cohort on ‘Election Integrity’ organized by the Election Commission of India.

In his address at the concluding ceremony, EC Anup Chandra Pandey said that though elections are key to democracy, the quality of functional efficiency of conducting elections by EMBs in turn depends on their effectiveness in addressing challenges and maintaining independence.  He urged all EMBs to strengthen democratic norms and processes and leverage all relevant platforms for collective action.

EC Pandey while highlighting the emerging challenges like polarization, populism, voter apathy faced by EMBs globally, emphasised the need for mutual cooperation, continuous engagement and knowledge sharing on a regular basis in a structured manner to address these challenges.

He said there is need to develop global standards and SOPs on management of electoral roll, polling management, electoral technology, control of disinformation, fake news, cyber security and all related aspects in conduct of free, fair and transparent elections.

Pandey said that efforts should be made to bring more and more democracies on board in a manner that involves and engages them in strengthening electoral democracy. Roles of the Partner organizations need to be redefined for more effective assistance to the needy EMBs for capacity building, he stressed.

During the last two days, detailed deliberations spread across three sessions were held.