American Elections Observer Concurs with Results
An American based NGO, the Carter Centre which participated in Kenya's General Election as an
observer has concluded that the outcome reflected the will of the people despite challenges the electoral
commission faced.
In its report released on Thursday, the Carter Centre said that although
the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) failed to manage voter tabulation systems correctly, the overall outcome indicated the voting patterns of Kenyans.
“The
paper-based procedure for counting and tallying presented enough
guarantees to preserve the expression of the will of Kenyan voters,” the
report says on the IEBC’s official results as indicated on Forms 34 and
36.
The Carter Centre also congratulated President-elect Uhuru
Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto after the Supreme Court upheld
their election victory as announced by IEBC on March 9.
The
Centre also praised Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who had petitioned to
the Supreme Court to invalidate the results, for accepting the decision
of the Court and added that the elections were only a democratic “work
in progress” whose mistakes ought to be corrected in future.
The Centre argues IEBC has to learn from this event to regain public confidence in future elections.
They
also noted that IEBC was ill-prepared to use the system and even when
it conducted trials, they were not fully successful to guarantee a
seamless functioning.
“Reliance on technologies that were only
partially successful during the mock election exercise threatened to
undermine the very trust they were designed to enhance,” the Centre
said.
“Some of the problems encountered by IEBC could have been
avoided by using simpler, more reliable, and less costly solutions,”
added the report.
IEBC was also on the spot for not giving its
officers an appropriate alternative in cases where the poll books and
other gadgets for voter results transmission failed, and for not giving
clear responsibilities to each officer.
For
instance, the Centre’s observers charge that there were no operational
manual procedures for the national tabulation of votes.
“The absence of detailed procedures did not enable election officials to consistently troubleshoot
data entry
errors or counting discrepancies,” it added. “These procedures should
be published well in advance, shared with all stakeholders, and also
address the review and audit of results by election officials to ensure
adequate and transparent safeguards are in place.”
However, the
observers commend IEBC field agents for working within the time schedule
despite the imprecise procedures they received.
The IEBC was
commended for publicising regulations and procedures on transmission,
receipt and processing of results to stakeholders such as party agents,
journalists and election observers as well as allowing full access to
tallying centres.
However, the Centre laments that insufficient descriptions of tabulation
instructions
were shared with Carter Centre observers which “appeared to be
insufficient to guarantee the integrity and accuracy of numerical
tabulation.”
Mr Odinga who ran on an ODM ticket in the Cord
alliance scored 5,340,546 votes or 43.31 per cent of the votes cast
against Mr Kenyatta’s 6,173,433 votes (50.07 per cent).
However,
Mr Odinga accused the IEBC of declaring a victory based on erroneous
voter register and manipulation of figures on Forms 36.
Last Saturday, the Supreme Court dismissed his petition but it is due to publish a full ruling in ten days’ time.
The
Centre though argued that the results were determined by “a missive
voter turnout” in Mr Kenyatta’s strongholds in Nyandarua, Murang’a,
Nyeri and Kiambu counties.
- Daily Nation