The Kenya Domestic Observers Forum was launched at an event at KICC in Nairobi on Thursday. The co-chairs for the organization say they hope to have monitors at all of Kenya’s 35,000 polling stations on election day. The forum will also monitor the political process running up to the elections. 

Koki Muli, another of the forum co-directors, says there are many groups within Kenyan society that are marginalized from the political process. 

For instance, women are less likely than men to have an identification or voter registration card. If they do have the card, Koki says, their husbands may not hand over the cards on election day. 

Female political aspirants may face more significant hurdles, according to the Netherlands Ambassador to Kenya, Laetitia Vander Assum. 

“We’re already hearing about violence to women candidates,” she says. “What the Kenyan Electoral Commission and others should look at, is putting additional security to women when they are on the campaign trail.” 

Vander Assum says it is essential to the democratic process that anyone who aspires to run for office be able to attempt the race regardless of gender, disability, economic level or ethnic background. 

Over the past five years, Vander Assum says she has seen significant improvement in the democratization of Kenyan politics. She referred to this year’s closely-contested Presidential race. 

“There is real choice; the outcome seems uncertain,” she says. “Now we seem to have the opportunity within reach to have the freest and fairest elections in Kenya’s history.” 

Vander Assum says that the election process, in effect, begins long before most international observers are in place on polling day. She says the Kenya Domestic Observers Forum’s work at improving the election process from voter registration to fair financing is critical to fair elections. 

Koki Muli says, among other things, the forum’s thematic observations will include monitoring political party structure, violence against aspirants and voters, and monitoring whether debates are personality-based or issues-based. 

The forum is also paying particular attention to how politicians may use negative ethnic stereotypes to gain political capital. 

“We want to create an environment that allows competition, but ensures it does not divide this country,” she says.

The Kenya Domestic Observers Forum is made up of civil society and religious organizations. It has US $2.2 million in funding for its work during this election year. In 2002, funding for domestic election monitoring was closer to US $6 million. 

The funding for the forum comes from various donor countries, including US $1 Million from the Netherlands. It is being administered by the United Nations Development Program. 

The Resident Representative of UNDP, Elizabeth Lwanga says, as Kenyan politics become increasingly democratic, such monitoring is essential to the protection of every person’s right to vote and right to run for elected office.

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