Commonwealth observers release report on parliamentary polls

Rwanda’s latest legislative elections, conducted from September 16-18, have received a clean bill of health from the Commonwealth. In a statement released on Monday, the group says the polls were “peaceful and provided for the key democratic electoral benchmarks such as freedom of association, expression, and universal suffrage.” An expert team from the Commonwealth was among the election observation missions. “The team noted with satisfaction the electoral reforms that have taken place since the 2010 Presidential Elections,” the group of 54 countries, most of them former British colonies, said in the statement. Of particular note is the establishment of the Rwanda Governance Board, which now has the mandate to register political parties, the statement quoted the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma as saying. The team further noted that the National Electoral Commission was well-prepared and mobilised to conduct the elections, the release added. Better things to come But there is room for further improvement, they said. “While much progress has been made, the team found that much more can be done to ensure continued confidence in the electoral process,” Kamalesh said. “The Team urged the relevant authorities to consider putting in place fairly equal requirements for registration and allocation of Parliamentary seats for independent candidates and political party candidates, and to significantly strengthen the capacity of the media, particularly in terms of investigative reporting and political commentary and analysis,” he added. Rwandans went to the polls from September 16-18 to elect members of the 80-person Chamber of Deputies, with the ruling RPF and its coalition partners sweeping the poll with a 76 per cent of the total votes cast. The election saw Rwanda set a new world record, with 64 per cent of the seats in the Lower House going to women. None of the four independent candidates in the race mustered the minimum 5 per cent votes required to win a seat in the August House. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) and Liberal Party (PL) won relatively few seats each, while PS-Imberakuru missed out after failing to collect enough votes. A total of 27 representatives of women (24), youth (two) and the disabled (one) occupy the quotas allocated to these special interest groups. Rwanda, which joined the Commonwealth in November, 2009, is one of the two members of the Club without colonies ties to Britain, with the other being Mozambique.