East African Community member states have been advised to put in place necessary mechanisms to ensure that elections are not drivers of violence within partner states but the basis for accountability, good governance and sustainable peace.
The proposal was made in Dar es Salaam yesterday by a panelist, Dr Godwin Murunga, as among recommendations at the 9th Inter-Parliamentary Relations Seminar known as Nanyuki IX Series held for two days under the theme of “Compliance with African Union and Sub-Regional Blocs’ Election Benchmarks: the case of the EAC.
” Mr Murunga noted that more support on the creation of conditions within respective partner states to free, fair and credible elections should be put in place as a precondition for legitimate post-election governance systems.
“A mechanism should be developed in harnessing youth energies and innovations in productive ways and by the same fact, deter the emergence existence, proliferation and use of armed militia groups that threaten peace,” noted Dr Murungu.
Among other recommendations is on the issue of fast tracking integration of minorities, marginal and marginalized groups and communities in politics.
“This will among other things address the gendered deficit in the conduct of politics in the region by providing mechanisms to support participation of women and youth in political parties as a way of ensuring equitable access,” pointed out the panelist.
He said that election observation standards and methodology should be reviewed to make them comprehensive and ensure that election observation reports address the overall integrity of the polls and recommendations emanating from their observation report are followed up.
He further added that the involvement of security agencies in the electoral processes should be managed to ensure the objective of ensuring security is achieved to create conducive and secure environment for the conduct of elections and announcement of results without intimidation actors within the electoral environment.
East African Legislative Assembly Member (EALA) from Tanzania, Ms Angela Kizigha pointed out that all the election benchmarks had been addressed by members from the opposition and ruling member states representatives.
“EAC needs a true democracy and peace, in order to achieve this, election challenges must be addressed before the announcing of the next elections in the member countries because doing so afterwards has not seem to help much,” pointed out Ms Kizigha.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda and Minister for EAC, Dr Ali Kivenjija, said election challenges should be attended to form the initial stage of the preparations.
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