European Union To Monitor August Polls In 39 Counties

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul, 18 – The European Union Election Observation Mission is set to monitor the elections in 39 out of the 47 counties countrywide.

According to Ladislav Garassy, one of the long-term observers deployed in Kirinyaga County, a team of 10 experts specializing in various disciplines has been in the country since June.

Garassy and his co-observer Nicola Susse were speaking on Saturday at Kirinyaga County IEBC’s office after meeting electoral agency officials to assess the state of their preparedness.

“This is one of the core teams sitting in Nairobi. It is composed of experts drawn from security to electoral agencies and media fields. Its core mandate is to coordinate the entire exercise as well as receive reports from its agents working in the field,” he said.

He said they would be involved in assessing all three phases of the electoral process–pre-election, election and post-election.

“We arrived in the region two days ago and so far we have been visiting various places  in a bid to familiarise ourselves with the key players in this election as far as this region is concerned,” Garassy said.

“We shall be meeting different stakeholders like the clergy, minority groups, candidates and political parties’ representatives to get their views and concerns about the elections,” he said.

Garassy said they were not in the area to give suggestions on what is to be done but to note down and raise concerns about whether the poll process is in line with the Kenyan law and elections international standards.

The observer said in a few days, another team of observers would be jetting into the country and later join them in their task of monitoring the elections in various polling centres.

County IEBC manager Jane Gitonga said they would continue to have mutual engagements with observers who are key stakeholders in the elections.

Besides the EU, she added that the African Union, ECOWAS and SADC would also be involved in the monitoring of the polls.