Karen Bass to lead Kenya vote monitoring delegation

Congresswoman Karen Bass is the senior Democratic member of the Africa subcommittee of the US House of Representatives. PHOTO | COURTESY  

A vice-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus is coming to Kenya this week as co-leader of an election monitoring delegation with the US Democratic Party.

Congresswoman Karen Bass, who represents a section of Los Angeles, will be accompanied by five US Congress staff workers as part of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) observation team.

Ms Bass, 63, is the senior Democratic member of the Africa subcommittee of the US House of Representatives.

OBSERVERS

NDI's international delegation is also headed by Aisha Laraba Abdullahi, former commissioner of political affairs for the Africa Union; Prof Attahiru Jega, former chair of Nigeria's Independent National Election Commission; Yvonne Mokgoro, a former justice of South Africa's Constitutional Court; and Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican former governor of the US state of New Jersey.

NDI spokesman Jerry Hartz said on Thursday that the Institute's 30-member delegation will work in partnership with the 7,000 observers being deployed by Kenya's Election Observation Group.

Mr Hartz added that the NDI team will also coordinate its activities with those of the Carter Centre, another US-based election monitoring group that is sending 80 observers to Kenya under the direction of former Secretary of State John Kerry.