Role of Kenya election observers scrutinized

Kenya’s Supreme Court ruling on 1st September nullifying the Presidential election has raised questions about the integrity of the international election observers.

Various monitoring groups stated that Kenya’s general elections were fair and credible despite the opposition leader Raila Odinga crying foul over massive rigging claims.

Most notably is the Carter Centre’s observation lead by the former US Secretary of State John Kerry who stated that elections were transparent.

Several people worldwide including Kenyans in social media expressed their dissatisfaction with the mission. The opposition said that the assessment was done to please the ruling party, the country’s business community, as well as international investors with huge stakes in East Africa’s biggest economy.

Raila Odinga had called for a re-examination of the role of the Kenyan election’s international observers, who put the country’s stability ahead of the election’s credibility and, he said, had “moved fast [in order] to sanitize fraud.

The mission later retracted their earlier statement by saying that the initial phase of election was credible but casted doubt on the result transmission.