Only two turn up at station to cast their votes

By James Munyeki and Job Weru

Nyahururu, KENYA: Laughter filled Nyahururu Boys High School tallying centre after it emerged that only two people had turned out to vote at a polling station. And in a rather comical fashion, one vote went to CORD presidential candidate Raila Odinga and the other to Uhuru Kenyatta of Jubilee Alliance.

Ngiruritu Nursery School polling centre in Laikipia West was the first to return its ballot boxes with only two votes in each of the boxes.

A sense of strange excitement filled the room when Laikipia West coordinator Agnes Muriuki read out the results. According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) records, the centre situated on the Northern side of the constituency has only seven registered voters.

Wasted resources
It was not immediately established why the rest did not turn out to vote but residents at the hall argued that since the polling station is situated in a remote place, the residents might either not have been aware of the exercise or they may have relocated since they were pastoralists.

“In each polling station, there were at least four police officers, a vehicle to ferry ballot boxes and lunch provided for them. Why would they waste such resources to cater for a few number of people?” argued a resident.

Meanwhile, delay in delivery of poll results and failure of Internet services marred the tallying process in Laikipia County on Monday night. Separately, Laikipia North Returning Officer Hashim Ismael had to cut short vote counting at Doldol Boys Secondary School and order a recount of votes from Ngenia Secondary School stream Two, after the results failed to match with the number of registered voters.

Mr Ismael said votes cast for presidential and other positions varied greatly, with others exceeding the number of recorded registered voters. “We could not allow this to go unconfirmed and we re-ordered that they recount the votes at the tallying centre to remove any doubt,” said Isamel.

And on Monday night, IEBC officials had a hectic time as they tried in vain to access results posted from various polling stations, while poll officials who were dispatched to various centres also took longer to count votes cast in their respective stations.

Surprisingly, election officials at Wiyumiririe, which is over 100 kilometres away delivered their materials earlier than their counterparts who were from various poling centres within Nanyuki town where tallying was taking place. But Laikipia IEBC Returning Officer Mr Daudi Haji attributed the delays to a high turnout of voters. Agents for various candidates also blamed the delay on the new longer voting system, which requires voters to elect six leaders.