Make Every Woman Count - Promoting the Empowerment of Women and Girls in Africa
2013 Elections Monitoring
CAMEROON: Senatorial Elections 2013
Cameroon’s first-ever Upper House of Parliament, the Senate (Sénat) elections are taking place on Sunday April 14th 2013. 70 seats are up for election, the majority expected to be won by the ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement/ Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (CPDM/ RDPC).TOGO: 2013 Parliamentary Elections
Parliamentary Elections in Togo take place on March 24 2013. These elections were postponed from October 2013 due to protests and demands for electoral reforms. The last elections were held in 2007 in which the Rally for the Togolese People won 24 seats, the Union of Forces for Change 27 and the Action Committee for Renewal 4 out of thee 81 seats. President Gnassingbe disbanded and replaced the Rally for the Togolese people with a new party, the Union for the Republic.
KENYA: Presidential and Parliamentary Elections 2013
As Kenyans head to the polls on 4th March 2013 in highly anticipated and closely watched presidential elections, there is a world-wide call for the elections to not only be fair but peaceful. This is following the last elections in 2007 that were very volatile and highly divisive along ethnic lines and led to post election violence where more than 1200 people lost their lives,[i] around 600,000 were internally displaced[ii] and sexual and gender violence was perpetuated against women and girls. Kenya is voting under a new constitution promulgated in 2010 after a referendum. These elections are therefore a litmus test on how far Kenya has come since the 2007 elections and the direction that the country is headed, which will have an impact on the whole East African region.DJIBOUTI: Djibouti National Assembly Elections 2013
Djibouti went to the polls for the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) elections on the 22nd of February 2013. More than 173,000 people are expected to have voted for the 65 seats available in the National Assembly.[i] It is also said to be the first time in a decade that the opposition has not boycotted the elections.[ii] In fact no opposition politicians have been elected in the Horn of Africa nation since it gained its independence from France in 1977. [iii] This means that there will be opposition politicians in the parliament, a good sign for democracy in Djibouti.