09 * Moi Avenue Primary School – Results not published – Kenya Elections 2013

From the foot soldier’s perspective: The Kenyan elections 2013 from an election observer’s viewpoint

Chapter 9: Moi Avenue Primary School – Results not published

For Uhuru, his alleged relationship with the Mungiki became an accusation. As much as Maina Njenga was regarded the official leader of the Mungiki, it was the alleged hidden leadership of Uhuru Kenyatta, which financed and directed the Mungiki in the killings particular of tribe members of Raila Odinga (Luo tribe) and William Ruto (Kalenjin tribe). Therefore, Uhuru Kenyatta and not Maina Njenga was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the United Nations.

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As part of my preparation for my job of election observer, I had instilled as much as possible the procedures of the Kenyan electoral process as per the Kenyan electoral law. According to Kenyan electoral law, the results of the tallying for each stream at a polling station had to be displayed near the location of that stream.

The tallying results should be declared on Forms (Forms 34 and 35), signed by a Presiding Officer for a particular stream and countersigned by party agents who were present during the tallying process and verified that the results declared were true. The figures should match the Form 36, to be taken by the Returning Officer for report to the final tallying at the National Tallying Centre (next to the electronic transmission of results).
The duly filled and stamped Forms need to be left behind and displayed at the polling station after the tallying had been concluded. The Forms should be displayed at least till the official results have been announced. Forms 34 and 35 serve as backup and verification in case Form 36 will not reach the National Tallying Centre or in case Form 36 has been tampered with.

I noticed that most of the streams did not have the forms displayed as required by law.
From the 12 streams, 7 had no results displayed, 4 had results partially displayed and only 1 had the results fully displayed as required.
Having nobody else to turn to at the site, I asked the watchmen if they knew anything about this. The watchmen told me that they overheard the IEBC officials saying ‘that they had run out of forms’. I wondered how a polling station could run out of forms.
Noticing another violation of electoral law and wondering where all this would lead to, I started to photograph the forms which I found displayed, to secure evidence, in case the results of the polling station would not reach the main tallying centre. How could this have happened?
When I had left at midnight the day before, there were still quite a number of observers around. As well Kenyan party agents, as well as a few international observers. Did none of them notice this violation? Or had they all left before the concluding of the tallying process? Did they take this rule too lightly? What had happened here?

The first step of the verification of the voting results was now incomplete. All of this could have not been as severe, if the Returning Officers would arrive with the proper results at the national tallying centre.
If they would arrive…