Something is not right – Kenya Election 2007

In my post on the vote counting procedure I stated that, “once the vote has been placed in the ballot box it is next to impossible to do something dodgy.” Perhaps I spoke to soon. To put it least dramatically, something is seriously not right here.

As an example let me use the constituency of Ikolomani in western Kenya as it is neither in Kibaki’s stronghold of Central province or Raila’s stronghold of Nyanza. I also know that constituency relatively well. Ikolomani is one of the constituencies where the Electoral Commission of Kenya has yet to release the results of the presidential vote.

The constituencies around Ikolomani, Shinyalu and Butere all voted overwhelmingly for ODM at civic, parliamentary and presidential level. Ikolomani however re-elected Dr Bonny Khalwale who was standing on a New Ford Kenya ticket which is part of the coalition of parties supporting Kibaki. This result has been largely accepted by the people of Ikolomani despite the race being exceeding tight.

Now in my observation of the vote counting process and according to Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) procedures ballots are counted in the following order: presidential, parliamentary, civic. The ECK announced the parliamentary result of Ikolomani late on Friday/early Saturday. This raises a few interesting points:

1. As the presidential ballots were counted before the parliamentary ballots and all results are sent from the constituency to the ECK at the same time, why is it that the ECK announced the parliamentary results of Ikolomani two days ago yet have not announced the presidential results which they got at the same time?
2. The parliamentary race in Ikolomani was pretty tight. This made it necessary for the results to go through various recounts to satisfy everybody. In short this was not a straight-forward constituency yet they had results by Friday evening. Why is that constituencies where the parliamentary race was much more straight forward have also delayed in sending in their presidential tallies yet have eagerly shared their parliamentary tallies.
3. Could it be because the people of Ikolomani, like many around Kenya, split their ballot? In this example voting for ODM at presidential level, yet PNU at parliamentary level?

Another more general point, the ECK says one of the problems it faces is that it can not trace around some of the Returning Officers who have the final presidential results of the constituencies they are yet to announce. The ECK chairman said yesterday that many of them had turned off their phones or were not answering their phones.

I can tell you right now that the Returning Officer for a constituency is not small, insignificant person. Of the people I know who have been Returning Officers in the past, one was the chairman of the Headmasters Association (in short the Headmaster of the Headmasters of all the secondary schools in the country), another was the Head of Finance of a large petroleum company, and another was a former very senior civil servant. These are not people who can simply disappear off the map by simply switching off their phones. These are pillars in their respective communities. You can not tell me that they can not be found in 48 hours. Heck if I disappeared in shags I would be found within 12 hours easily, how is it these guys are completely MIA?

A final point, according to official figures released by the ECK at 14.30 on Saturday Odinga had 3,880,053 votes against Kibaki’s 3,842,051 giving Raila a lead of 38,002. Now check out what the Office of the Government Spokesman has on its website:

Kibaki: 2,394,099 and Raila: 2,388,721 giving Kibaki a lead of 5378. Now if that is not inflammatory and irresponsible I do not know what is.

kenyaelection07