Election watch

Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, Executive Director of IDEG res-ponds to criticism directed at Election Observers for their role in the annulled elections in Kenya. He particularly appeals to citizens to understand the role of ex-President John Mahama’s role as head of the Commonwealth observer team. Please hold your fire. Prez Mahama and Prez Mbeki acquitted themselves well as leaders of the ...

After years of government stalling, demonstrators are demanding electoral reforms, including the reinstatement of term limits. Thousands take to the streets in Togo to demand the reinstatement of the 1992 constitution. On Saturday 19 August, shocking images of the bodies of protesters being carried on stretchers started flooding social media in Togo. That day, thousands of citizens had taken to ...

Two days after voting in Kenya, key observer missions including teams from the African Union (AU), Commonwealth, the East African Community (EAC) and the European Union (EU) have made statements on their assessment of the electoral process so far. Generally, most observer groups believe that despite few minor incidences, the process of voting, counting, and tallying at polling stations has ...

On Tuesday, the Republic of Kenya will be going to the polls. However, it appears that some forces are hell bent on creating chaos to influence the elections in their favour. Even though Public Agenda cannot authenticate the document below, we are pulsing it as a warning. For us it is even more alarming that a Ghanaian citizen has been ...

Genuine, inclusive, free and fair elections are an indispensable component of democratic governance, rule of law and respect for human rights alike. While it is true that West African States have achieved great strides of progress in the last decades, challenges still remain and cases of human rights violations leading to violence and potentially destabilizing tensions make the headlines on ...

Since the last election in which Hilary Clinton, the Democratic party candidate lost to the current President, Mr. Donald Trump, the United States has not stopped its claims that Russia tried to influence the outcome of their elections by supporting Donald Trump. These claims are being investigated in the United States, Whatever the outcome, it will remain one of the ...

It’s a busy time for elections in Africa, with countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe and Kenya gearing up for the polls. And as elections increasingly become the legitimate way to acquire political power on the continent, winning votes has become a matter of life and death for the political elite in many countries. Contentious election ...

Kenya, like the rest of Africa is continually entangled in an intricate web of electoral intrigues and shenanigans of imperial politics. For far too long, the philosophy and practice of power has largely been an expression of colonialism and therefore the emergent political culture based on master-slave(leaders-people) relationship characterized by obtuse greed (pernicious avarice), grabbing and primitive accumulation of wealth, ...

Today, June 5, 2017 is a landmark in the history of Public Agenda as the paper makes a comeback to newsstands. Since it was founded in 1995, Public Agenda has contributed immeasurably to the development journalism and human rights advocacy and in building a democratic society. It remains a forced to be reckoned with. In the past few years, its ...