Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers, Minister of Social Development and Education, has just returned from a trip to the United Kingdom to see how the general election is run.
She was part of the Election Assessment Mission team put together by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).
A total of 32 parliamentarians from throughout the Caribbean and wider Commonwealth observed and assessed the process in eight different constituencies.
During the three-day visit from 2 to 4 July, they called in on polling stations, and spoke with election officials and political representatives.
Following the UK’s 4 July general election, the participants issued a preliminary statement with their initial observations. A detailed report will be published in the next two months.
Speaking during a government press conference on 15 July, Kentish-Rogers said the team had worked 20-hour days during the observation mission.
Strengthening democracies
Mission leader Otiende Amollo, member of the National Assembly of Kenya, said in a press release before the visit, that it plays “an important role in strengthening democracies”.
The role of the visitors is to observe the democratic process, share findings and make recommendations in line with international best practice, he added.
Amollo said the parliamentarians were drawn from regions across the Commonwealth and would be impartial observers of the voting process.
The constituencies that the team visited included seats in the regions of Birmingham, Glasgow, Northumberland, East London, Bristol, Cambridgeshire, Brighton and Liverpool.
They were carefully selected to provide a broad sample, covering a variety of demographics, regions and voting patterns.
‘Valuable and effective’
Since 2010, the CPA UK branch and the British Islands and Mediterranean Region have organised 19 short-term election observer and assessment missions.
Most recently these took place in Jersey and the British Virgin Islands in 2022 and 2023.
CPA UK commissioned an independent report, published earlier this year, which concluded that the missions are “overwhelmingly valuable and effective”.
Sarah Dickson, chief executive of CPA UK, explained that the organisation was set up over 100 years ago to strengthen ties between the parliaments of the Commonwealth.
This is not the first time Commonwealth parliamentarians have observed a UK general election as previous election assessment missions were carried out in 2015 and 2017.
