Africa-Press – Ethiopia. Addis Ababa June 18/2021 (ENA) The Coalition of Ethiopian Civic Society Organizations for Election (CECOE) plans to deploy 4,000 observers for the 6th General Election that will be take place this Monday.
Briefing the media today, coalition board member Sahleselasse Abebe said CEOCE is contributing to the election by deploying citizen observers who ensure the inclusivity, transparency, and credibility of the election.
The purpose of election observation is to collect and provide independent and non-partisan information for citizens, candidates, media institutions, election officials, civic society organizations and other government bodies so that they can make informed judgments on the quality of the election, he elaborated.
To attain this goal, CECOE has been training 4,000 observers for the upcoming election in order to maximize the number of empowered citizens that monitor the process on the Election Day.
Furthermore, Sahleselasse stated that CECOE’s Election Day observation is premised on systematic approach of data collection, which will allow it to use standardized checklists to gather consistent information on the quality of the process in all parts of country where elections take place.
Deployment of observers in the regional states and administrative cities will be proportional to the total the number of polling stations per region or administrative city, sending more observers to zones with more polling stations and few observers to areas with fewer polling stations, he elaborated.
The board member said this will allow the coalition to provide information that accurately reflects the overall experience of citizens.
Furthermore, he said the CECOE plans to deploy between 1,500 and 2,000 stationary observers to regions and city administrations on the Election Day.
On the day of election, proportionally deployed observers will report their observation findings at the designated time using short message services technology to the CECOE National Data Center in Addis Ababa, Sahleselasse revealed.
About 37 million Ethiopians are registered to vote in the upcoming 6th General Election, which is expected to be free, fair and democratic.
