European Union, US Carter Centre Scale Down their Observer Teams in Kenya's Repeat Election

The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) and the US Carter Centre Observation Mission have withdrawn some of their observers in Kenya's repeat presidential election set for Thursday.

In a statement, the European Union Observer Mission said that their move was informed by security fears and the charged political environment.

"We have assessed the safety of our observers considering the extreme tension, disruptions of polling preparations and strong criticism that has been made of the international community. Based on this, we have had to reconsider the extent to which we can observe across the country," the statement read in part.

In a similar manner, the Carter Center also announced it has scaled down its teams in Kenya citing security concerns and tense political environment ahead of Thursday's repeat presidential election.

“The Carter Center does not plan to deploy a full election observation mission to assess the Oct. 26 election. Instead, the center will deploy a limited observation mission with 10 long-term observers and a small team of election experts to assess the general electoral environment, and key procedural changes implemented by the IEBC, especially related to tallying processes at the constituency tally centers. Given the small size of the team, the center will not conduct a robust assessment of polling station level processes,” the election observation mission said.

This comes after the Commonwealth Observer Mission also withdraw its entire team of poll monitors in the country citing security fears.

“Everybody cited security fears. They felt it is not safe to observe elections when electoral officials themselves have been targeted,” an official in one of the Commonwealth countries told the Nation