EALA aspirants list delayed

KIGALI - The final list of candidates aspiring to join the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) may not be made public soon as earlier expected.Sources in the National Electoral Commission (NEC) said that a meeting of the college of electoral commissioners that was supposed to be held on Wednesday had been called off. Some suggested that the meeting was expected yesterday.However, sources said that after the college of commissioners’ vetting, the final list would not be made public until the EALA law is out after being published in the official gazette.The bill paves way for elections of the country’s representatives to the EALA, the legislative arm of the East African Community (EAC). The NEC Chairman Prof. Chrysologue Karangwa had earlier said that the list would be made public on Thursday. He was not available for a comment yesterday.But the Secretary General of the Government, Augustin Sebudanga, said on Thursday that the EALA bill was not among those that will soon be published in the official gazette.“The bill is still awaiting the ratification of the EALA treaty; it cannot come out until the Treaty is ratified,” Sebudanga said.President Paul Kagame’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Ambassador Richard Sezibera said that the amendments of the EALA treaty were recently approved by EAC Heads of State. The ratification process, he said, is still going on.Sezibera said that the Rwandan Parliament has already authorised the ratification, adding it (the ratification) cannot stop the internal procedure of electing EALA lawmakers go on.“Any member country can formulate its internal laws concerning the bloc and also (EALA) candidates can be elected but they can’t join the assembly until all member countries have adopted the ratification,” he explained.The old treaty states that EALA has 27 elected MPs, nine from each of the former three member states- namely Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.But the new treaty has a provision of Rwanda and Burundi, both of which joined EAC mid this year.Rwanda’s EALA seats will be occupied by representatives of women, disabled people and youth, but political organisations have also vied for representation in the bloc’s legislative arm.The six other slots will go to political organisations.Ends