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2017 KENYA ELECTIONS

Orderly queues do not equal credible polls, international observers told

ICJ-Kenya Chair Njonjo Mue/MUTHONI NJUKI

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 4 – A lobby group that consists of various groups of observers is questioning the credibility of electoral commission to conduct repeat presidential as currently constituted.

Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu has expressed concern whether the independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s election managers and some of the staff in can be trusted to conduct free and credible election.

Njonjo Mue who is the Chairman of the International Commission of Jurists on Monday said they will be seeking to have a meeting with IEBC to get clarification on how they intend to address concerns that have arisen from the nullification of the Presidential election results.

“We are going to seek a meeting with the IEBC for reassurance about what they intend to do about thing that went wrong with the election; subject to that meeting we want the Kenyan people to be satisfied if the IEBC is capable of conducting a free fair and credible election if its incapable then the IEBC has to go,” indicated Mue.

Welcoming the Supreme Court ruling, the Chairperson for Muslims for Human Rights Khelef Khalifa said that IEBC should comply with the court’s orders and provide access to the servers so as to allow time for full forensic audit of the technology before heading to another election.

“As the country prepares to conduct another election, the Kenyan people deserve a closure of what happened to their votes. It’s imperative that a full forensic audit of the technology and other systems be conducted before we head into another election in sixty days,” said Khalifa.

Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu also demanded that the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission for full transparency including information and communication technology and all procurement purchases.

Mue also concurred with the Supreme Court and Chief Justice David Maraga’s observation that “elections are not an event, but a process.”

“The observers who came from abroad seemed to have come here, observed Kenyans queuing orderly and went back and said this was a fair election. They should have said Kenyans are able to queue, because that was the observation they made.”

“And we’re telling the observers that if they’re going to observe another election, they have to come here to observe an election. Not to observe whether Africans can queue or not queue.”

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“Kenyan elections are not rigged at the polling station anymore. That used to happen in the 90s when ballot papers used to be stuffed and ballot boxes used to be thrown into rivers. Elections are rigged at the point at which results are being transmitted and tallied in order to determine the final outcome.”

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