We have suffered enough in the hands of money and power hungry M’F'ers. The peace solution is getting further away from us as we type our words and feelings.

Kibaki did not win the elections, that we all know, but he has the power to stop Kenya from civil war, and irreparable damage.

Kenya will be no more, the phrase ‘Hakuna matata will no longer be the invite to the tourists! Kibaki and his men are the only people who can allow this to happen. Its a pitty, but the only way to stop this, is to stop Kibaki himself. lgnijnci,vmjg;qjgnvjfv,gjq’,v

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=115623

One thing is for sure, Raila, Kibaki and their families will not be in that refugee camp..

WTF is wrong with us?????

If my memory serves me right, we have a very efficient NSIS that would normally smell out even the tiniest whiff of such shenannigans and nip them in the bud (unless someone can convince me that NSIS has become useless).

So now are we supposed to believe that all the assurances were merely lip service? If we believe that, then what else are we being told/assured of today that will turn out not to be mere lip service, lies, or bravado?

I’m not claiming that any side is right and the other wrong; that is why I asked the ECK to shed light on the issue. Of course if you know any better please enlighten me.

Are you saying that everything PNU is saying is lies and that eveything ODM is saying is truth?

There have been repeated claims by the “government” and the Party of National Unity (PNU) that their rival, ODM, also rigged the votes in its strongholds. But nobody seems to question how ODM could have managed such a feat.

Some in the international community, including the EU Observer Mission and the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Ms. Jendayi Frazier, seem to be falling for the ruse and lending credence to the allegations.

If the government/PNU and the ECK were so convinced that the opposition also rigged, why did they not follow the country’s electoral laws — the same laws they are sworn to protect and obliged to enforce and which they are now “urging” ODM to abide by — and address these issues within the stipulated time period as lawyer Donald B. Kipkorir brilliantly explained in a recent article in a local daily (“Why Kivuitu must be held accountable for poll chaos”, the Daily Nation, 5 January, 2007)?

As Kipkorir noted, the electoral laws require that “the ECK gives all parliamentary and presidential candidates 24 hours to lodge complaints, if any, including demanding a recount or retallying. The ECK is obliged to, within 48 hours, allow the recount or retallying. All candidates and the ECK therefore have 72 hours to resolve any disputes. It is only after the period that the ECK can announce the winners of each of the 210 parliamentary seats and issue a certificate known as Form 17 to each elected MP and Form 18 to the elected president. The results are then gazetted.”

I personally think that these allegations are a red herring designed to throw us off the track and to cover up the real issue here–that the government was caught with its hands firmly stuck in the cookie jar. Let’s consider what we know to be facts (not suppositions):

1) The government was always in complete control of the election process—as government officials, including then outgoing president Mwai Kibaki and the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), were falling all over themselves to assure the public when ODM and Kalonzo Musyoka’s ODM-K first raised the prospect of the government rigging the election;

2) President Kibaki appointed all the ECK commissioners without reference to anybody else;

3) the government, through the ECK, awarded contracts for printing the ballots papers—and again went to great lengths to assure us that no fake ballots could be introduced into the system;

4) the government/ECK kept these ballot boxes and ballot papers under lock and key (and again assured the public that no one, except the ECK, had access to them);

5) the ECK transported the ballot materials using government transport, under heavy police guard, to the polling stations (and once again assured the whole country that the ballots were safe and sound);

6) the government/ECK appointed, trained, and paid all the election personnel (returning officers, clerks, etc) without reference to the opposition;

7) the ECK generally oversaw the voting, counting, and tallying of votes in all the constituencies;

8) thousands of observers, voting clerks, party agents, the media, and voters observed every step of the voting and tallying processes at the constituency level—and not one of them was reported as complaining about ballot stuffing or any such shenanigan at that stage;

9) party agents signed off on the results announced at these polling stations;

10) the returning officers announced the results in front of all present as soon as the counting and tallying were completed at the constituency level—that is how those elected knew immediately that they had won and could celebrate—and the results were also recorded by voters, party agents, election observers, and the mass media.

The process that I have outlined above was more or less the same everywhere in the country, except in a few locations such as Starehe, Kamukunji, and Kajiado North, where there were complaints.

(Later, opposition party agents and observers reported that they were denied access to the tallying areas and denied the chance to sign the now infamous Forms 16, 16A and 17A, at various constituencies, particularly in the PNU strongholds of Central and Eastern Provinces; PNU in turn claimed its agents were intimidated out of ODM strongholds in Nyanza.)

Interestingly, the presidential results in some of the PNU strongholds were held back while civic and parliamentary results were announced.

It therefore boggles the mind why the government would turn around and expect people to believe that ODM could have found a way to also rig the vote—not after all the multiple assurances that it (government), the ECK, and the state security apparatus gave to the public in the period leading up to the vote.

To me a more plausible explanation is that if any ballot stuffing occurred, it was carried out by someone with full access to the system. And who could this be if not the government and ECK?

I think whoever did the stuffing (if that is how it was done) did it in collusion with the ECK or inflated figures from selected opposition areas deliberately (after all the rigging claims are based on supposed “suspiciously” high voter turnouts in certain ODM strongholds, something that could easily have been achieved by inflating numbers) in order to find an excuse to cry foul in the event that their own rigging was discovered.

Unfortunately the international community/ observers are doing Kenyans a great disservice by repeating these claims, without any attempt to analyze the facts, in their enthusiasm to appear neutral.

When all is said and done, the government/PNU complaints are just a red herring.

The Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) has noted allegations made against it and its officers through newspaper advertisement published in the Sunday Nation and TheStandard newspapers on January 19, 2008. The ECK welcomes this analysis and now
seeks to correct the many factual inaccuracies and wrong impressions contained in the
said advertisements to set the record straight in the public interest.
Allegation 1: The Chairman of the ECK is not sure whether Hon. Mwai Kibaki won
the December 27 General Elections.

ECK response: This allegation has been widely circulated in the local and international
media. The actual question posed to the Chairman of the ECK by the media was “do you
believe that Hon. Mwai Kibaki FAIRLY won the election?”. His response was: “I don’t
know. That is until I see the original records which I can’t for now unless the court
authorizes. What we have are records of results from field officers” (Daily Nation,
January 3). The question on whether one has won FAIRLY is a matter of interpretation
and not an issue within the competence of the ECK to determine. The media has
deliberately distorted this question to remove the word FAIRLY to create the impression
that the ECK is uncertain as to who won the elections.

The ECK determines the winner of the presidential election on the basis of the final vote
tally. In this regard, Mwai Kibaki was pronounced the winner having garnered the
highest number of votes – 4,584,721 votes against Hon Raila Odinga’s 4,352,993 votes.

Allegation 2: The Chairman of the ECK announced the results under duress from
PNU and ODM-K.
ECK response:

It is public knowledge that PNU, ODM and ODM-K were all captured
on television at various points pushing the ECK to expedite the process and announce the
final results citing the anxiety in the country. On January 3, the chairman of the ECK
was asked: ” Were you under duress when announcing the results? Did anyone from State
House call you to say this is the winner?”The chairman responded: ” No, no. Kivuitu is
beyond that”. (Daily Nation, January 3).

Allegation 3: That the Chairman of the ECK was aware that in several
constituencies, the total votes cast exceeded the total number of registered voters.

ECK response:

The law empowers the ECK to reject the results of any polling station
whose votes exceed the number of registered voters. In the December 27 elections,
Maragwa constituency was mentioned specifically as having reported more votes than
the number of registered voters. However, these were in respect to Parliamentary not
Presidential votes. Upon verification by ECK at KICC, it was established that the mistake
arose from a double entry of votes from one polling station. This was corrected and the
results announced. At the joint verification of constituency tallies on December 29th at
KICC both ODM and PNU confirmed that the results from Maragwa constituency were
in order.

Allegation 4: That the Chairman of the ECK was not in control of his officials in the
field during the tallying period. In some areas where the results are alleged to have
been rigged, the ECK officials had “disappeared” or “switched off their phones”.

ECK response:

Returning and Presiding officers, Polling Clerks and other ECK
officials, are bound by the rules and regulations of the ECK. At some point, it seemed
that ECK could not trace some of its officers or reach them on phone. The explanations
received by the ECK confirmed that no officials deliberately switched off their phones.
Some were out of network reach, others switched off as they concentrated on the
counting and tallying, others were unable to charge their phones during the vote counting
process having been in the field for prolonged periods, while others were unable to travel
due to skirmishes.

Allegation 5: That election documents have been tampered with by ECK officials
since the announcement of results.

ECK response:
Tampering with election results is a criminal offence. Anyone alleging
tampering is under a legal duty to record statements with the police to facilitate
investigations with a view to instituting prosecution. The ECK ensures proper custody of
all documents and would not condone any breach of the law. ECK has faith in its
officials and could not expect any of them to tamper with such documents. If there is
anyone who can identify such a person who has tampered with the said documents, ECK
would be ready to offer any assistance for their prosecution.

Allegation 6: The ECK allowed Returning Officers to submit their returns in the
absence of agents which is against the law.

ECK response:
There are instances where some agents of political parties may not have
been present to sign Forms 16A when results were announced at the polling station. The
absence of an agent (and therefore his/her failure to sign) does not invalidate the results,
hold back their announcement or their transmission to the tallying centre at the
constituency level. It is the responsibility of party agents to avail themselves to sign
Forms 16A. Absence of agents at polling stations applied to all political parties. It is
their responsibility to be there not ours.

Allegation 7: That in 42 constituencies, presiding officers at polling stations refused
to make Forms 16A available for signature by agents. This was meant to enable
fictitious results in favour of Kibaki to be completed at KICC.

ECK response:
ECK received these complaints and sought explanations from our
officers. We have sent to ODM copies of the statement of those officers for their
evaluation.

Allegation 8: In some cases, ECK officers at KICC altered Forms 16A e.g. Juja
constituency

ECK response:
Form 16A is completed and signed at each polling station confirming
the results. It is signed by the Presiding Officer and the agents of political parties
present. The Returning Officer then prepares Form 16 which is a summary of the results
contained in all the Forms 16A from all polling stations in a constituency.
The case of Juja: The total number of registered voters in Juja constituency is 163,657.
There are 231 polling stations. There was no evidence for anybody to conclude that
alterations to any documents were made by ECK officials at KICC. The Chairman noted
alterations on Form 16 with no explanations. He did seek explanations from ECK
officials at KICC and Returning Officer. Both groups confirmed the provisional results
announced were the unaltered ones. He then ordered the files to be secured. Later on
when the Chairman found the results announced included the altered results, he directed
the Returning Officer to write a statement explaining how the errors arose and what
eventually were the final results.
The Returning Officer explained that as at 1.00 pm on December 28th, he had tallied
votes from 111 polling stations. By then, President Kibaki had 48,293 votes as clearly
indicated in the Sunday Nation advertisement. After results from the remaining 120
polling stations were tallied, Mwai Kibaki’s votes totalled 100,390. By the time the
Commission had no way of verifying this further since there were no other channels
available. The voter turn-out in Juja was 73.3%. The total votes cast in the presidential
poll was 119,964 while the total for parliamentary elections was 114,808.

Allegation 9: Agents of ODM were forcefully thrown out of some polling stations

ECK response:
The ECK has not received any written complaint from ODM regarding
any of its agents being thrown out of any polling station(s). Any such complaint should
be formally made to the ECK.

Allegation 10: The ECK failed to establish a national tallying mechanism as obliged
by law

ECK response:
The law mandates the ECK to announce the results of the presidential
poll upon receipt and verification of Forms 16 from the 210 constituencies. This is the
legal requirement and procedure used in all past elections starting 1992, 1997 and 2002.
It is, therefore, misleading to say that the ECK failed to establish a national tallying
mechanism as obliged by law.

Allegation 11: 5 ECK Commissioners have come forward to confirm rigging

ECK response:
This is news to us! All the ECK Commissioners were present to
confirm the final results of the Presidential Poll as announced by the Chairman of the
ECK on December 30. The ECK is not aware of any Commissioner(s) who has
confirmed this allegation of rigging.

Allegation 12: The ECK received “results” away from public scrutiny from
candidates or their agents, and then announced these “results” which is against the
law.

ECK response:
Under Kenya’s electoral law, results are announced at each polling
station in the presence of party agents before transmission to the constituency tallying
centre. In fact ECK had offered to train the agents at its cost and very few came forward.
So if some did not sign the forms it was either out of arrogance or ignorance for which
ECK cannot be blamed. The law does not provide for the presence of agents when the
ECK is receiving election returns from Returning Officers.

Allegation 13: ODM agents were barred by armed police and paramilitary officers
from accessing the tallying room at KICC.

ECK response:
This is misleading. Ordinarily, the tallying room at KICC was limited to
the ECK and not to party agents since the facility was to merely receive and verify results
from Returning Officers. These results would already have been witnessed by party
agents at the polling stations and constituency tallying centre. If they had asked to access
the facility ECK could have considered it. As a matter of fact on December 29, the ECK
allowed each of the three main political parties – ODM, ODM-K and PNU – to send their
representatives in to the tallying room to verify the presidential tally from all the
constituencies. These representatives were: ODM (James Orengo, Dickson Ogolla),
ODM-K (Mr Muteti) and PNU (Martha Karua, George Nyamwea).The following
observers were also present: KEDOF( Hassan Shanman, Nassir Ahmed, Koki Muli);
Association of Professional Societies in East Africa (Julius Melli, Ben Sihanya). It is,
therefore, misleading to say that agents of political parties were not allowed into the
KICC tally room.

Allegation 14: In 48 constituencies, results had no Forms 16A which made them
unacceptable under the law as true and accurate results.

ECK response:
For the record, Forms 16A are completed by Presiding Officers in the
presence of party agents and observers at each polling stations. The Returning Officer
then prepares Form 16 which is a summary of the results contained in all the Forms 16A
from all polling stations in a constituency.
The claim on the 48 constituencies was first made by the Hon. William Ruto on
December 30th when ODM addressed an international press conference at KICC. Hon.
Ruto knew or ought to have known that his claim was misleading and misdirected. At the
conclusion of the tallying exercise on December 30th, only results from 11 constituencies
did not have Forms 16 received at KICC. The Returning Officers from all these 11
constituencies had already phoned in the results (as required), but by law, the ECK could
not announce the final results until it had verified the returns from each of these
constituencies. The chairman of ECK announced that a helicopter had been dispatched to
collect these returns from the pending constituencies and these were received and verified
before announcement of the final results.

Allegation 15: That the law gives the presiding officer a legal duty to ensure every
voter marks the three ballot papers and places them in the proper ballot boxes.

ECK response:
On the election day, there were three distinct elections — civic,
parliamentary and presidential. While each voter is expected to fill in three ballot papers,
it is not mandatory that one must vote in all the 3 elections – civic, parliamentary and
presidential.

All along ECK has said it publicly that it is ready to go with all the parties concerned and
look at all Form 16s and verify what they state and tally them. But instead of ODM
taking advantage of this offer it has preferred to aggravate the dispute by involving the
public in the streets which has lead to injuries and deaths of innocent Kenyans, and also
by making it an international agenda.

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