European Union (EU) and East Africa Community (EAC) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have deployed numerous Election Observers who have expressed a readiness to monitor Kenya’s elections.
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) was the first to fly to Kenya for an elections observer’s mission. On a mission to assess the 2022 general elections in line with Kenya’s domestic legal framework as well as with international and regional standards and commitments, Kenya has in regard to democratic elections.
The EU election observers provide an informed, comprehensive, and impartial analysis of the entire electoral process, in line with established EU methodology for observing elections.
East African Community (EAC) headed by Jakaya Kikwete on the EAC election observation mission has deployed 15 election observation teams to observe the general elections.
The EAC member states; Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda are a part of the process of ensuring peace.
Kikwete assured of the observers’ eligibility having undergone training over the past five days to enable them to undertake their responsibilities as international observers and as EAC observers.
“Their task as observers will be to observe polling processes on the polling day including results management at the polling stations and observe tallying, announcement, and declaration of results. Once they are done monitoring the elections they are required to prepare a preliminary report on what they had observed during the electoral process,” said Kikwete.
Further added that a 52-strong EAC observer mission drawn from the EAC member states and the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) had been deployed in 15 teams that will cover various counties in all the regions across the country.
The six IGAD member states, including representatives of electoral bodies and diplomats from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and, Uganda are part of the observers within the nation for oversight.
Dr. Mulatu Teshome, Head of the IGAD Election Observation Mission, on Sunday, flagged off the observers drawn to 18 constituencies across 11 counties for the observation mission.
The regions of deployment of the diplomats, and electoral bodies include; Nairobi, Nyeri, Uasin Gishu, Nakuru, Kajiado, Kisumu, Kisii, Kakamega, Machakos, and Mombasa.
Urging citizens to maintain peace as Kenyans are set to vote for the next president who will take over from the incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta come to the end of August polls. A winner will have to garner at least 50+1 of the total votes cast by Kenyans.
The voting is to see new leaders elected in the areas of; President, County governor, Senators, Women Representatives, members of Parliament, and Members of the County Assembly.
The two major political alliances, Kenya Kwanza (Kenya First) headed by sitting Deputy President William Ruto, and Azimio la Umoja (Resolution for Unity) led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga with backing from President Uhuru Kenyatta will compete for the top seat in the country during Tuesday’s polls.
An improvement done by IEBC is it has for the first time established 7 media centers within the tallying centers across the country for the journalists to transmit results within the shortest time possible.
“The media plays a critical role in ensuring that we have fair and credible elections, this is the reason why we have set up 7 fully equipped media centers for the journalists who are working with our team. For instance, the results will be transmitted from the regional tallying centers to the national tallying center in Nairobi and the journalists can transmit those results,” said IEBC Chairman Chebukati Wafula.
