A team of election observers of the East African Community (EAC) will arrive in the country this week for the upcoming Presidential Elections slated for August 09. The Advisor to the Minister for East African Community, Jean Pierre Niyitegeka, told The New Times yesterday that the team of five will arrive in the country to gauge and observe the upcoming elections. “The team of EAC observers will be here from August 6 to 11 where they will observe elections, compile a report and present it to the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and to member states,” he said The team, which will be headed by Burundi’s Dr.Sabine Ntakarutimana, Uganda’s Bernard Mulengani, Kenya’s Safina Kwekwe and Catherine Kimura and the Hansard Officer William Kamketi. Asked whether facilitating the team will not jeopardise his ministry’s impartial observer duty, Niyitegeka said that his Ministry would not be involved in any of the team’s work whether directly of indirectly. “The EAC team is coming here with its own facilitator who is also a Hansard Officer; Mr. Kamketi, who will take care of all their needs. We are not in any way going to be working with them in this period,” he said The Civil Society Election Observation Mission (CSEOM) last week officially launched its National Election Observation Mission that will observe the elections. The observer mission is composed of a core team of 15 observers, 30 long term observers and 500 short term observers who will be assessing the presidential elections countrywide. The Commonwealth will also send a 13-person observer group headed by former Tanzanian Prime Minister, Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, under the invitation from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) NEC has so far accredited 1,191 observers, both local and international. Ends
