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VICTOR RABALLA

Observers voice concern over multiplicity of Kenya electoral laws

Thursday August 11 2022

Observer missions heads: (from left) Former presidents Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone (African Union), Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete (East African Community) and Mulatu Teshome of Ethiopia (Igad) after a press briefing in Nairobi on August 11, 2022. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG

By LUKE ANAMI

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Election observer missions to Kenya have lauded the electoral commission for professionally carrying out a smooth voting exercise despite reported cases of failed electronic identification kits in some polling stations.

The East Africa Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), the Commonwealth, the African Union (AU), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) observer missions also single out the police for heightened security at the polling centres.

However, the team faulted the use of state resources during political campaigns, failed Kiems kits in some polling stations, low voter turnout and lack of youth participation in both elective posts and the voting process.

Read: What are these troublesome Kiems kits?

EAC's take

“The mission takes note of the remarkable improvements made by the IEBC in regard to transparency, preparations, and management of the 2022 Kenya General elections,” said EAC mission’s leader, former Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete.

He recommended “better communication between the IEBC and the various stakeholders.”

Mr Kikwete also commended the National Police Service, which he said did not interfere with the voting process.

“In the observed polling stations, security personnel were present and highly professional in the discharge of their duties and responsibilities. They did not interfere with electoral processes, nor did they intimidate voters,” he said.

While noting the challenges of the Kiems kit hitches, he said technology improved efficiency and increased transparency, unlike in the previous elections.

He recommended that the kits’ problems be identified, and the necessary, correct measures are taken for better performance in future elections.

AU and Comesa

The African Union and Comesa also lauded the IEBC’s performance but took issue with the use of state resources during the campaign period.

“While the campaigns were largely peaceful and issue-based, hate speeches, misuse of state resources, non-adherence to campaign schedules, violence and use of criminal gangs were observed,” said Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, former president of Sierra Leone.

“The misuse of state resources created an unlevel playfield, especially for smaller campaign players.”

The AU-Comesa mission noted that despite the relatively high youth population (18-35 years), there was low youth registration in the 2022 elections.

“Only 39.84 percent (8.8 million) of the total registered voters were youth, a decline of 5.17 percent from the 2017 figures”, Mr Koroma noted.

The mission also observed the Treasury’s late release of funds to IEBC, which affected key electoral processes, including voter registration, verification of voters register, and voter education.

The elections witnessed a high level of participation of political parties and independent candidates.

Out of the 90 registered parties, 81 contested the elections. Of the 16,105 candidates, 28.1 percent were independents.

“Many independent candidates were reportedly dissatisfied with the candidate selection processes within political parties,” said Mr Koroma.

Commonwealth’s view

The chairperson of the Commonwealth Observer Group, Bruce Golding, commended the largely peaceful environment that prevailed in the pre-election period and praised the efforts by political parties, their leaders, presidential candidates, and the people of Kenya to foster a peaceful environment in the lead-up to the elections.

“We noted that voters were largely able to cast their ballots freely. The elections were competitive, with freedom of association and participation rights provided for and respected,” said Mr Golding.

“By and large, there was an understanding that any disputes arising would be referred to the courts. We were reassured to hear that the judiciary commands public confidence.”

However, he pointed out that the lack of a comprehensive review of the Electoral Act and the Kiems system led to some uncertainty in the electoral process.

“The multiplicity of unconsolidated amendments to the electoral laws has also complicated the administration of elections in Kenya and resulted in its ambiguity. These complications hampered the IEBC’s electoral preparations and resulted in rulings which necessitated last-minute changes to procedures,” said Mr Golding.

“It is noted, for example, that the issue of whether the digital or printed register would be the primary mechanism to verify voter identity was only decided the day prior to the elections, following a ruling by the Court of Appeal. Kenya may wish to consider the establishment of a specialist court to deal with election-related matters.”

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Unique map as Azimio, UDA paint Kenya blue and yellow

EAC observers laud Kenya for successful use of technology in election

Thursday August 11 2022

EAC head of observer mission Jakaya Kikwete addresses the media at Serena Hotel, Nairobi on August 11, 2022 during a joint AU, COMESA, EAC and IGAD press briefing on Kenya's General Election. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG

By STEVE OTIENO

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East Africa Community (EAC) Observer Mission in Kenya has lauded the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for carrying out a smooth voting exercise on Tuesday.

In a press address on Thursday morning at Serena Hotel in Nairobi, the observer mission said that the police also were in position to ensure voters are secured during the exercise in polling stations.

The mission’s leader, Jakaya Kikwete (former Tanzanian President), said that the police did not interfere with voting exercise.

“The mission commends IEBC for the successful use of the technology in voter registration, voter identification and the transmission of results,” Mr Kikwete said.

He said the technology has improved efficiency and increased transparency in the country, unlike in the previous elections.

However, Mr Kikwete said that there were a few cases where voters were not identified by the KIEMS kit, asking the commission to note such issues and resolve in future.

“We recommend that the problems relating to KIEMS kit should be identified and necessary corrective measures be taken for better performance in future.”

Further, the mission raised concern over insufficient agents from the independent candidates in the presidential race.

Mr Kikwete said that the mission realised that the leading alliances in the race deployed a few number of agents in polling stations compared to the Independent candidates vying for various seats.

“It was intriguing to note that the presence of many agents of Independent candidates…it appears there are many Independent candidates, which is good for democracy but there is a story behind it and we are going to take up that matter in the main report.”

This story was first published on Nation.africa.

In the headlines

Rwanda makes biggest interest rate rise to 6pc

The central bank rate increase is the biggest since 2009 on account of soaring inflation.

Observers voice concern over multiplicity of electoral laws

Election observer missions to Kenya have lauded the electoral commission and the police for smooth voting exercise.

Rwanda rejects calls to release Rusesabagina

Ethiopia launches power production from second GERD turbine

Blinken in Rwanda for talks on tensions with DRC

Unique map as Azimio, UDA paint Kenya blue and yellow

Thursday August 11 2022

The colour-coded map from August 10, 2022, shows the counties where Raila Odinga's Azimio Blue and William Ruto's Kenya Kwanza Yellow were leading in the vote count. MAP | NMG

Summary

The Raila blue expanse represents a pincer movement or complete encirclement of the Ruto yellow, and territorial dominance.
As projected, Dr Ruto retained his Rift Valley base, scooping over 90 of the vote in most counties, while Mr Odinga did the same in his Nyanza bedrock.
A key determinant, however, might turn out to be in the number of voters who stayed away.

By Macharia Gaitho

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The colour-coded map from Wednesday night showing the counties where the Azimio Blue and Kenya Kwanza Yellow were leading in the Kenyan vote count showed an interesting pattern.

The yellow of Deputy President William Ruto’s was solid in a tight and populous sector across the middle of the country, comprising his Rift Valley bastions stretching north across Upper Eastern counties of Isiolo and Marsabit to the Ethiopia border, west to the Uganda border; and taking in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Mt Kenya region.

The densely populated yellow counties would by area have occupied more than half the country, but for an interesting blue projection from the Sudan border to the northwest, Turkana and Samburu counties in a south-easterly direction right into the Ruto heartland.

The blue dagger was complemented by a swathe of blue in Mr Raila Odinga’s Nyanza strongholds, running south through the lower reaches of the Rift Valley, then east to link with the expansive Lower Eastern region and further into the coastal region, and from hence upwards through the north-eastern region adjacent to the Somalia border.

The Raila blue expanse represents a pincer movement or complete encirclement of the Ruto yellow, and territorial dominance.

Appearances, however, can be deceiving. The blue expanse across the Coast, North Eastern and Upper Rift Valley may make up a vast amount of territory, but it is sparsely populated, while the much smaller yellow where Dr Ruto is dominant is densely packed with humanity. It is people who vote, not land area.

All the same, results trickling in Wednesday night indicated that while Dr Ruto and Mr Odinga remained locked in a tight race, earlier projections from the pre-election opinion polls had been thrown helter-skelter by a historically low voter turnout.

As projected, Dr Ruto retained his Rift Valley base, scooping over 90 percent of the vote in most counties, while Mr Odinga did the same in his Nyanza bedrock.

The DP also ate handsomely into Coast and Western Kenya regions previously dominated by his Azimio rival.

Key determinant

A key determinant, however, might turn out to be in the number of voters who stayed away. With a national figure of just around 65 percent, Mr Odinga reaped well with his Nyanza base, recording the highest turnout in the country at 80 percent, while Dr Ruto’s Rift Valley barely skimmed 70 percent.

Then there is the populous Mr Kenya region, which gave the Jubilee Party pair of President Kenyatta and Dr Ruto something in the region of 90 percent of its vote in the last two elections while recording extremely high turnouts.

With the outgoing President spurning his deputy of two terms and backing the fifth bid of the veteran opposition chief, the Odinga camp expected a big boost, up to 30 percent or more, of a vote that defied Mr Kenyatta and threw its lot with Ruto.

The 2013 and 2017 campaigns had seen massive mobilisation in Mount Kenya, first to ‘rescue’ a favourite son from the jaws of the International Criminal Court, and the second time to ensure the hated ‘kimundu’ —as Mr Kenyatta’s vernacular radio presenters derogatively referred to Mr Odinga—did not take away their birthright.

It turned out that not even President Kenyatta’s intervention could earn affection for Mr Odinga, especially when he, too, has been roundly rejected.

Mr Odinga struggled to get 20 percent of the Mt Kenya vote, which might have been fatal but for the fact that with no serious candidate of their own to rally around, the droves stayed away.

A low 55 percent voter turnout hurt Mr Ruto badly in the Mountain, even though he dominated the presidential vote and scooped nearly all the legislative seats.

Document dump

Meanwhile, as results continued streaming in, attention shifted to the slow pace, despite the fact that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission had uploaded more than 80 percent of result forms from over 46,000 polling stations.

By Wednesday morning, none of the main media houses had managed to give a count of more than 1.5 million votes—shared roughly equally between the two main candidates—from a figure of around 14 million, yet the IEBC had already shared nearly all the counts from individual polling stations on its public portal.

By 8 pm Wednesday night, the Nation election portal was leading the count, with nearly seven million votes accounted for from some 22,000 of the 46,000 polling station result forms, Form 34A.

Read: What are Forms 34A and 34B?

That was still well short of the total votes cast or anything required to make a clear projection of the likely winner.

Public frustration at the slow pace was compounded by the fact that the three main media houses with the latest results on their TV stations and websites were projecting different tallies, adding to the confusion.

The reality is that the media had been thrust into unfamiliar territory by the decision of the electoral commission to perform the equivalent of a document dump.

Instead of doing its own tallies and giving regular updates from the National Tallying Centre at the Bomas of Kenya, the IEBC simply uploaded copies of the raw forms on the public portal; and left them for the media, political parties and any other interested groups to download them, key in the data and do their own tabulations.

That is a mammoth undertaking by any standards as the results from the counting centres were uploaded as scanned copies of the original handwritten forms, rather than data that could be easily transferred to a worksheet.

To add to the confusion, agents and propagandists from the two main political formations, Dr Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza alliance and Mr Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja coalition, went into overdrive, each claiming victory on social media and displaying their own tallies.

By not releasing any tallies and just making the raw polling station result forms available, the IEBC handed the media the primary role of calling the results, the American style-scenario where there is never a Wafula Chebukati, or their equivalent of an electoral management body chair, to announce the winner.

The job is done by CNN, CNBC, Fox News, ABC and the other major media houses. It is only much later that the results are verified at the state level and then by the Senate.

For Kenya’s elections on Tuesday, all the main media houses set up their own tallying centres, which were to be fed by data collected by reporters and correspondents from the 290 constituency tallying centres.

The ideal strategy would have been to collect data directly from the source, but none had the manpower and resources to cover 46,229 polling stations.

Still, initial projections were that the vote counting would proceed fairly quickly once the polling stations closed at 6 pm on Wednesday, allowing for the completed forms 34s to be transmitted to the constituency tallying centres, from where the totals from the polling stations in each constituency would generate a tally form known as 34B.

By Wednesday night, only a handful of the constituency tallies were available despite the fact that nearly all the polling station counts had been transmitted to the tallying centres.

That heralded another long wait as Mr Chebukati continued to stand firm against announcing any provisional results.

- First published in Nation.Africa.

In the headlines

Rwanda makes biggest interest rate rise to 6pc

The central bank rate increase is the biggest since 2009 on account of soaring inflation.

Observers voice concern over multiplicity of electoral laws

Election observer missions to Kenya have lauded the electoral commission and the police for smooth voting exercise.

Rwanda rejects calls to release Rusesabagina

EAC observers laud Kenya for use of tech in election

Ethiopia launches power production from second GERD turbine

Blinken in Rwanda for talks on tensions with DRC

Kenya polls chief: No declaration of presidential results today

Wednesday August 10 2022

By NATION AFRICA

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Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will not name the winner of the presidential election on Wednesday. This is according to the agency's chair, Mr Wafula Chebukati, who also acknowledged that third parties such as the media had already begun tallying using the available Form 34As.

Read: What are Forms 34A and 34B?

"Results in the public portal are the same that the commission will use to declare the results. We have given agents, media and certain stakeholders access to the same...Declaration of Presidential results will not happen today," he said.

In the Wednesday afternoon press briefing, the IEBC boss also reiterated that results announced at polling stations would be final. Mr Chebukati noted that IEBC was yet to receive any physical copies of Form 34A or 34B.

"Collating of results from 290 constituencies is underway and returning officers will deliver Form 34B afterwards," he said.

"We encourage candidates who have lost the elections to concede."

While the commission is yet to tally the presidential figures, the Nation's provisional results based on Forms 34A uploaded to the IEBC portal show that Deputy President William Ruto stood at 51.45 percent and Raila Odinga at 47.9 percent by press time (3.16 pm).

To follow the Nation's live updates on the election results, follow the live blog here.

To view the Nation's provisional results, check out the portal here.

In the headlines

Rwanda makes biggest interest rate rise to 6pc

The central bank rate increase is the biggest since 2009 on account of soaring inflation.

Observers voice concern over multiplicity of electoral laws

Election observer missions to Kenya have lauded the electoral commission and the police for smooth voting exercise.

Rwanda rejects calls to release Rusesabagina

EAC observers laud Kenya for use of tech in election

Ethiopia launches power production from second GERD turbine

Blinken in Rwanda for talks on tensions with DRC

Unique map as Azimio, UDA paint Kenya blue and yellow

Uhuru Kenyatta, Martha Karua fail to give Raila Odinga win in own polling stations

Wednesday August 10 2022

President Uhuru Kenyatta casts his ballot at Mutomo Primary School in Gatundu, Kiambu County on August 8, 2022. He is flanked by his wife, First Lady Margaret Kenyatta, and some family members. PHOTO | NMG

By The EastAfrican

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Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto garnered more than double the votes that were cast in favour of his closest rival Raila Odinga at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s polling station -- Mutomo Primary School in Gatundu South, Kiambu County, central Kenya.

A total of 983 ballots were cast in favour of Dr Ruto of Kenya Kwanza while Mr Odinga of Azimio la Umoja got 464 votes.

President Kenyatta was backing the veteran opposition leader Mr Odinga, much to the chagrin of his deputy.

The polling station, where Mr Kenyatta voted, has a total of 2,164 registered voters and only 1,460 turned up to vote. Three of the votes cast were rejected.

Agano presidential candidate Waihiga Mwaure garnered four votes, while his Roots party counterpart George Wajackoyah garnered nine.

Read: Kenya polls: The four men seeking to succeed Uhuru

Raila’s running mate

Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party presidential running mate, Martha Karua casts her vote at Mugumo Primary School in Gichugu on August 8, 2022. PHOTO | NMG

In Kirinyaga County, DP Ruto pulled an upset in Mr Odinga’s running mate Martha Karua's own polling station through a clear win, with Ms Karua only delivering less than a third of the votes.

Results from Form 34A posted by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) showed that at the Mugumo Primary School in Gichugu Constituency, in central Kenya, where she voted, DP Ruto garnered 911 votes against Mr Odinga's 311 votes.

In the headlines

Rwanda makes biggest interest rate rise to 6pc

The central bank rate increase is the biggest since 2009 on account of soaring inflation.

Observers voice concern over multiplicity of electoral laws

Election observer missions to Kenya have lauded the electoral commission and the police for smooth voting exercise.

Rwanda rejects calls to release Rusesabagina

EAC observers laud Kenya for use of tech in election

Ethiopia launches power production from second GERD turbine

Blinken in Rwanda for talks on tensions with DRC

Unique map as Azimio, UDA paint Kenya blue and yellow