Kalonzo jets out to monitor Azerbaijan presidential poll

Wiper Party leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, is set to jet out of the country on Sunday evening to monitor the presidential election in the Eastern European Republic of Azerbaijan.

The National Super Alliance (Nasa) co-principal is leading the observer mission from Africa, under the umbrella of Centrist Democrat International (CDI).

Azerbaijan, a country of nine million people which broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 will hold its presidential elections this week on Wednesday, April 11.

POLL BOYCOTT

The country’s Central Election Commission has cleared eight presidential candidates to run for top office, including the incumbent President Ilham Aliyev who is seeking re-election for a second seven-year term on New Azerbaijan Party ticket.

Mr Musyoka, who alongside other Nasa leaders boycotted the repeat presidential elections on October 26^th last year, will observe the Azerbaijan polls that has similarly been shunned by four opposition parties citing unfulfilled electoral reforms.

The four parties are accusing the electoral agency of ambushing them by calling for elections earlier than it was expected, when their demands for amendment to the elections code had not been met.

According to the invite seen by the Nation, the observer mission team is scheduled to meet the Central Election Committee and the country’s political players on Tuesday in Baku – for series of briefings on the campaigns and the elections preparedness.

“For your record, we are a group of 24 observers from all continents, most of them parliamentarians with vast experience in observing elections all over the world and we are expected to have an objective look on the good practices of an electoral process” Mr Musyoka said.

OBSERVER TEAMS

He said two of the observer groups comprising eight members will stay in the Great Baku – the largest voting bloc while the other three will visit mid-size cities and rural areas.

Mr Musyoka was invited by the Centrist Democrat International - a global political group dedicated to the promotion of Christian democracy in Europe and Latin America but which collaborates with his Wiper Party.

CDI is banking on the Wiper leader’s vast experience in diplomacy, political and public service but more specifically his direct involvement in Kenya’s last three presidential elections where he has been a candidate.

This will be his second high level observer mission after a similar one in September 2013 in Sri Lanka, where he was invited under the Commonwealth umbrella through the Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma.

Just like Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan is dominated by Muslims with more than 89 percent of them being Shia and thus his experience in the regional peace missions in the Sudan and Somalia will come in handy.

The voting exercise is expected to kick off by 08:00 am and end at 08:00 pm according to the program thus “observer teams should be at the polling stations before their opening to witness all the pre-voting procedures and also remain till the closure of polling stations and counting procedure”.