Ugandan team to monitor Kenya polls

By Hillary Nsambu                                                   
                                                                                         
The Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) has dispatched a team of eight people to Nairobi that will monitor Kenya’s presidential election scheduled to take place on March 4, 2013.

CCEDU is a civil society coalition on democracy and elections and a project of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI).

The team that consists of five men and three women was led by the project’s coordinator, Crispy Kaheru. The other members were Geoffrey Wokulira Ssebaggala, Celestine Mugisha, Patrick Kaboyo, Christine Nakirya, Lillian Nakaweesi, Farida Lule and Ogoti Wada.

It was revealed that CCEDU is to partner with other regional and continental groups including the West African Election Observers Network (WAEON) and Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) to support country based election observation efforts.         
           
“As a neighbor, we note the historically close social, economic and political linkages that our two nations have shared.

Kenya is one of Uganda’s biggest trading partners and, therefore, Ugandan citizens have more than a passing interest in a peaceful outcome of the Kenya elections,” Livingstone Sewannyana, FHIR’s executive director and chairperson CCEDU executive committee, said.

CCEDU also dispatched observer missions to the Sierra Leone and Ghana elections of November 17 and December 7, 2012 respectively.

It was revealed that while in Kenya, CCEDU team will hold meetings with stakeholders, including the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya (IEBC), political parties, candidates, civil society organizations, donors, electoral assistance NGOs as well as domestic and international election observer groups.  

He said that the observer team would mainly focus on the integrity and transparency of the electoral process including focus on active citizen participation in election activities. The team would also document standards and practices of pre-election campaigns, voting day and post-election activities.