NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 5 – The Yes team held a commanding lead as vote count on the national referendum on the proposed constitution at the Bomas of Kenya continued early Thursday. By 4:45am local time, the Yes side had garnered 4,149,118 against 2,058,921 votes polled by opponents of the proposed Constitution, after tallied results from 14565 polling centres.
A total of 6,208039 votes have been tallied with Yes clinching 66.8 percent of the votes while No has 33.2 percent.
Central province gave the Yes team 839,963 votes with No at 154,198.
At the Coast the Yes camp was leading at 217,693 votes with the No trailing at 57,329.
In Eastern Yes was leading at 556,950 while the No camp came close with 425,634 votes.
In the Kenyan capital, Yes had 596,341 and the No 212,327 votes.
In North Eastern, Yes was still in the lead at 82,888 and No at 3,574.
Nyanza Province gave Yes a convincing lead at 732,581 with No getting 62,747 votes.
In the expansive Rift Valley, the Yes camp was trailing at 654,398 and No at a massive 1,054,252.
Western gave Yes the lead at 468,304 while No got 88,860
Earlier, the IIEC said most polling stations across the country recorded over 50 percent voter turnout in Wednesday\’s constitutional referendum.
Mr Hassan said Nyanza Province posted the highest turnout at over 80 percent as at 3pm local time, which was the commission\’s benchmark.
"Kisumu region recorded 85 percent turnout while Kisii recorded 80 percent turnout as at 3pm," he said.
Rift Valley, Central Province and Eastern Province registered an above average turnout with most stations witnessing about 50 percent voter turnout. However, in some of these areas, such as Nyeri, Thika and Eastern regions, more than 70 percent of the registered voters came out to cast their ballot.
There were surprises in some stations in Rift Valley such as Baringo Central and Kacheliba which recorded a 10 percent and 15 percent turnout respectively. Attendance was also poor in Bungoma at 40 percent.
However, no ugly incidences were reported in any parts of the region.
Mr Hassan reported that although majority of the 27,689 polling stations opened on time or slightly after 6am, delays – some of which were out of the commission\’s control – were to blame for the low turnout in some areas.
Logistical problems were also cited as one of the reasons why many Kenyans did not cast their ballots on time. In Kapenguria for example, there were stations that opened at 10am because voters had difficulties accessing the polling posts due to the rough terrain.
"Some stations in Narok North and Narok South opened after 8.30 am, in Central Province, the prison under Igembe South Center opened after 9am while in Eastern Province some stations in North Horr opened after 10am because the vehicle transporting the staff and materials broke down," the chairman explained.
However, in all these stations, voters were expected to recover the time lost as provided by the law.
The transmission of electronic results begun at 7pm, live from the constituencies. Tallying from areas that have a large number of registered voters was expected to continue into the night with their results expected at about midnight.
"We are expecting our officers to come with form six and form seven to Nairobi, which is going to be the official results that we will declare eventually. We however don\’t expect much difference between what\’s being announced and what\’s going to come to the officers," Mr Hassan said.
Arrangements have been made to have officers who announce the results at the constituency level travel to the Bomas of Kenya before the final tally is declared.
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