Several election observer teams declared the September 16-18 Rwanda Parliamentary election “free and fair” despite concerns that the polls lacked serious opposition against the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, which won with a landslide.

READ: AU, EAC election observers arrive

According to the African Union observer mission, the polls went well save for a few anomalies such as lack of transparency in auditing and reconciliation of voting materials, security for the materials and failure to assist voters.

The 30-member team was assigned to 26 districts across the country and is set to release the final recommendations in a month’s time.

In a report released after the polls, the team stated that counting process was generally transparent, except in some polling stations.

“Polling stations failed to display the ballot paper to the few party agents and observers, making it difficult to verify the choices of the voters,” reads the statement.

AU election observer mission co-ordinator Idrissa Kamara said that in some polling stations, there was no audit of the election materials used, making it difficult to reconcile the total votes cast against the spoilt ballot.

“While reading out results cast for a particular candidate, polling officials did not display them, in most cases not showing that this was RPF, PL or PSD; the few party agents that were present could not verify that the said party reflected the ticked mark on the ballot paper,” he said.

However, the observers maintained that the results in the preliminary report will form the major content of the final report, assuring members of the press who raised concerns of contradicting reports in the previous observation mission.

The delegation further said that the security of voting materials was not foolproof as some ballot papers lacked serial numbers, although polling stations were clearly marked and easily identifiable.

They said that the layout of the polling stations was sufficient to guarantee the secrecy of the vote while the open voting enhanced transparency.

Other errors were on the usage of indelible ink on voters and failure to give clear voting guidance by electoral staff.

“The African Union election observer mission highly commends the people of Rwanda and all stakeholders on the manner in which they conducted themselves throughout the electoral process,” reads the statement.

“The mission calls on the people of Rwanda to maintain the peaceful atmosphere of the elections even as they await the announcement of final results.”

A parliamentary group comprising six observers from the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Parliamentary Forum said in its interim report that the polls were incident free and, therefore, free and fair.

However, the monitors led by Onyango Kakoba, a Uganda parliamentarian, deputised by Prosper Higiro, formerly of Rwanda parliament, said they did not participate in vote tallying, a key process in thwarting vote-rigging. Other members of the committee came from Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan.

Mr Onyango said that vote tallying lies with National Electoral Commission.

“In most polling stations, small parties had no observers.”

Except for RPF, most parties in Rwanda are resource constrained. Majority of the legally accepted ones are allied to the ruling party.

The Ugandan legislator told the media: “The electoral process was free and fair and reflects the will of the people.”

Most of vote rigging in Africa in non-democracies is committed at this level.

A commentator noted: “The result of tallying process is the core method in determining if the election was free and fair.” The monitors noted their activities relate to ensuring “if the security, facilities and the process is followed.”

A team of East African Community observers led by Kenya’s former minister of EAC Affairs Musa Sirma also concluded that the polls were free and fair.

They said that in a political context the polls were satisfactory with peace and tranquility while on the legal context, the emphasis on gender representation in public leadership is worth appreciating.

Areas evaluated included the measures taken by the government and NEC to ensure sustainability of electoral costs. Key among these were the use of volunteers as polling clerks and printing of ballot papers locally.

In this regard, external funding of elections has drastically reduced from 37 per cent to only four per cent, while the cost per voter fell from $2.9 in 2008 to $1.4 in 2013.

The EAC Mission Observers said that the parliamentary elections were conducted in accordance with the constitutional and legal framework of the country despite a few challenges.