Kenya’s Amina Mohamed to lead Commonwealth Observer Mission to Dominica

AMina Mohamed

Amina Mohamed. She was former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s first Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

Kenya’s former Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed will lead a Commonwealth election observer mission to the Dominica, the organisation’s secretariat announced on Saturday.

A statement said Ms Mohamed, who was President Uhuru Kenyatta’s first Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, will lead the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) to the Caribbean country for elections scheduled for December 6, 2022. The team will also include Ms Liberata Mulamula, Tanzania’s former Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Patricia Scotland, the Commonwealth Secretary General, said Ms Mohamed will lead a five-member group of observers to watch over the polls.

“Under the chairmanship of Hon Amina Mohammed, I firmly believe that the observer group will provide an informed, comprehensive, and impartial assessment of the electoral process.”

The observer group will arrive in Roseau, the Dominican capital, on November 30 2022 “and stay until the completion of the electoral process,” the statement added.

“During their stay, which will see them deployed throughout the country, they will be supported by a team from the Commonwealth Secretariat led by Ms Chantal Sciberras, Adviser and Head of Europe in the Governance and Peace Directorate.”

This will be Ms Mohamed’s first public task since leaving her post as Cabinet Secretary for Sports and Culture last month.

The observers are supposed to be impartial and “will adhere to the standards of the Commonwealth Guidelines for the Observation of Elections as well as the International Declaration of Principles for Election Observation, to which the Commonwealth is a signatory,” the dispatch said.

The Commonwealth includes the UK and 55 other countries, most of which are its former colonies, except Rwanda, Mozambique, Gabon and Togo.

The team includes: Amina Mohamed (Chairperson), Liberata Mulamula, Prof Praja Trivedi, Ian Hughes and Wyvolyn Patterson.