EU mission accredited to monitor elections

The EU observer mission in Rwanda has been authorised to monitor parliamentary elections scheduled to begin on 29 September, state-owned Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Thursday.

"The observers of the EU have already received the accreditation," Chrysologue Karangwa, the president of the National Electoral Commission, was quoted as saying.

RNA reported that the EU mission had committed itself, in writing, to respect the NEC's instructions during the elections.

The EU mission, headed by Colette Flesch, has been in Rwanda since 22 July at the commission’s invitation. It has five experts based in the capital, Kigali. An EU statement on 31 July announcing the mission's deployment, said 12 long-term observers and 60 short-term observers would monitor country's first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections since the 1994 genocide.

Campaigning for the parliamentary elections began on 6 September, following President Paul Kagame's landslide victory in a presidential poll on 25 August.

After the elections, Rwanda's parliament will comprise an 80-member chamber of deputies, 53 of whom will be directly elected by voters, and 27 by interest groups such as women, youth and the disabled; and a 26-member Senate, 12 of whom will be elected from each province by local councillors, the rest to be nominated by Kagame and tertiary institutions in the country.