Kenya rubbishes damning EU report on 2017 polls

Kenya has rubbished European Union Election Observation Mission final report on Kenya’s last year poll terming it unprocedural and premature.

The Kenyan Embassy in Brussels through a statement said it was dismayed by the manner in which the report was released and accused EU of disrespect.

“The government of Kenya regrets the procedural and premature manner in which the Final Report of the EU election observation mission has been released by Hon. Marietje Schaake, MEP. Her actions have breached the terms of Kenya’s memorandum of understanding on election monitoring with the European Union which called for a structured and official process” part of the statement read.

Ms Marietje Schaake, in a televised address on Wednesday morning from Brussels, said she had to read the report from the European Union parliament because the Kenyan government frustrated their efforts to present the report and was not willing to meet them.

“This is one of the very few times that a presentation of an EU mission observation final report takes place here in the European parliament instead of the country where we observed — Kenya,” Ms Schaake said.

“We were entirely prepared to travel to Nairobi this week to present the final report of our recommendations to the government of Kenya as well as to other important stakeholders, of course the most important being the people of Kenya.

“We’ve understood, however, that the Kenyan government is not prepared to receive us within the terms foreseen in the memorandum of understanding signed between the EU and Kenya; because that specifies that we will present our final report within three months of the Election Day,” said the Dutch politician.

Kenya has however refuted this allegation and instead labelled Ms Schaake as dishonest who has personalized and instrumentalised a tool meant to improve the electoral management.

Here is the full statement.