Yakani hails ‘transparent’ election for East African parliament

JUBA – Prominent Activist Edmund Yakani has hailed and described elections for South Sudan members of East African parliament as democratic and transparent, saying acceptable electoral values were observed during Friday’s vote.

On Friday, South Sudan lawmakers elected at least nine officials to represent the world’s youngest country at the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) with women taking at least 44 percent of the seats against men’s 56 percent.

In a statement, Yakani hailed the electoral process as transparent.

“Democratic elections values were observed during the elections. The values include freedom of expression, free media coverage, unrestricted domestic observation, peaceful and freedom campaign in the parliament, transparent votes counting, no harassment and intimidation,” the activist said.

“Congratulations for the leadership of the National Transitional Legislative Assembly for the organization of democratic elections of our representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly. Congratulations for the women representatives for winning 44% representation in the East African Legislative Assembly,” he added.

Just before the votes, the parties involved in the process, mainly SPLM-IO and SPLM-IG, rejected the idea that candidates present themselves for few minutes for voters to decide who to elect based on their electoral programs.

Yakani said the rejection was undemocratic and described it as fear for tough questions from members of the public who attended the process.

“In relation to the process the parties totally rejected public debates prior to the elections due to fear of getting properly questioned by the members of the public,” he said.

“This practice is wrong and next time the parties should allow their contesting candidates to be questioned by the public in public debate prior their elections. Further the style of ten campaign should be improve to the level of the contesting given time to answer questions from the members of the parliament during their campaign in the parliament,” he added.

Yakani who is also the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) said the civil society watchdog “will be organizing public debate for the elected representatives to EALA for them to answer public questions about their role in the EALA for the best interest of the country and the region.”