Raila-led alliance decries slow release of poll results

Coalition for Reforms and Democracy has urged its backers to remain calm and wait for the announcement of the final election results.

The alliance’s presidential running mate, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, on Tuesday said it was premature for Jubilee coalition to claim victory because the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission had not announced the final tally.

He said Cord was optimistic of emerging victorious at the end of the day.

“We note with worry that there are those amongst our competitors who have not resisted the temptation to engage in premature celebrations that are neither based on data nor fact,” he said at a news conference in Nairobi.

Early results announced by IEBC indicated that Jubilee presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta was ahead of Cord flag-bearer Raila Odinga.

“It is important that we await the outcome of the remaining two thirds of the polling stations in order to make any conclusion,” said Mr Musyoka.

“Consequently, we appeal for calm and call on our supporters to relax because we are confident that after all the votes are in, Cord will carry the day. Results from our strongholds are yet to be made public and once they are, things will change dramatically. That’s basic statistics.”

However, the Vice-President raised concerns over IEBC’s delays in releasing the poll results, in areas even as close as Nairobi.

“We have raised the matter with the electoral commission and Safaricom, the service provider, who have explained to us their capacity to relay results from areas closer to the city like Kiambu is much faster than far flung areas like Garissa,” he said.

He reiterated that if they lose the election “fairly” they will concede defeat and asked their competitors to do the same.

He also expressed worries over the large number of votes that have been rejected in the results announced so far.

The electoral commission has pledged to investigate the issue. IEBC chairman Ahmed Issack Hassan said an audit would be carried out to find out why so many voters made mistakes during voting

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Returning Officers in Bomas with Kenya's presidential results

A clear picture of who won the Monday presidential elections is expected to show later Wednesday morning after several Returning Officers began arriving at the Bomas of Kenya to physically deliver the manual results.

The officers were delivering duly signed Form 34 and 33 capturing the results to be announced by the commission later on Wednesday.

Only 13,000 polling centres had relayed their results electronically giving Jubilee flagbearer Uhuru Kenyatta a lead with 2,790,417 with Cord's Raila Odinga trailing with 2,199,092.

About 11.5 million Kenyans took part in the elections.

Mr Odinga had secured 25 per cent in 31 counties while Mr Kenyatta had also garnered 25 per cent in 32 counties.

Analysts predicted the election could go either way with both Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta registering strong wins in their strongholds.

Earlier IEBC chairman Mr Ahmed Issack Hassan directed that all Returning Officers be summoned to the city to deliver results without fail.

Up to 70 Returning Officers from various constituencies around the country had arrived at the Bomas of Kenya by 3am on Wednesday and were queuing to file their returns before the results they delivered could be accepted.

“IEBC puts rapid transport measures to ensure Returning Officers deliver official results by early morning. This should tremendously increase poll results by mid-morning Wednesday March 6,”read a text message dispatched by the commission.

The commission would largely rely on the physically delivered results after the visualisation of the electronic results transmission facility they were using collapsed.

Party agents were also available at the tallying centre to carefully verify and reconcile the results as they were submitted by the commission officials.

Cord team at the Bomas of Kenya comprised of cabinet ministers James Orengo, Franklin Bett, Assistant minister Gideon Ndambuki and the ODM chief agent Prof Larry Gumbe.

The Jubilee team also comprised cabinet minister Charity Ngilu, Moses Kuria, Johnson Sakaja among others.

The IEBC had come under pressure from the two main political parties to release results to avoid raising tension in the country due to the uncertainty.

Various IEBC commissioners would be announcing results at intervals at the Bomas Of Kenya auditorium from early Wednesday.

“We have set teams here who will be coming to announce results as they come to us from the ground,” the IEBC chairman Ahmed Issack Hassan said.

The commission would be struggling to release all the results from all the 290 constituencies.

The Constitution however requires that all results delivered by the Returning Officers are properly verified before they can be officially declared.

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Kenya counts votes in pivotal 2013 elections

10:35 UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon calls for peace as Kenya counts votes. "A peaceful, credible conclusion to the election is within Kenya’s reach and would be a significant step for Kenyan democracy and stability,” Mr Ban says.

10:26 Timothy Wanyonyi Wetangula (ODM) wins Westlands MP seat with 42,558. TNA's Kihara Otiende 26,571.

10:23 Votes cast: 5,609,300. Rejected votes: 336,568

10:20 Kenyatta 2,811,277 (53.34pc); Odinga 2,218,473 with 13,842 out of 31,981 polling centres reporting.

10:15 Former permanent secretary James Nyikal captures the Seme parliamentary seat.

9:52 David Kangogo of URP (11,599) wins the Marakwet East parliamentary seat. Former area MP Jebii Kilimo (TNA) polled 9, 196.

9:45 African Union (AU) lauds Kenya for holding a peaceful, transparent and credible General Election. It has, however, raised concern over the huge number of rejected votes.

9:40 Kamukunji constituency: Gideon Mbuvi 46,918 against Bishop Wanjiru 20,979 in Nairobi Senate race.

9:35 In Kamukunji constituency, Ferdinand Waititu 35,405 leads Nairobi Governor race against Evans Kidero (30,814).

9: 12 Some 13,802 polling stations have reported with Mr Kenyatta still in the lead with 2,804,269 (53.36pc). Mr Odinga has 2,210,505 (42.06) Mr Mudavadi at 150,200 (3pc). 335, 416 votes rejected; disputed votes are at 264.

9:05 Johnson Manya Naicca (ODM) clinches Mumias West MP seat after garnering 18, 932 votes against FPK's Martin Opondo Oloo (5,475).

9:02 Newcomer Andrew Toboso Anyanga (ODM) is the MP elect for Butere constituency.

8:53 Returning Officers streaming in and out of the National Tallying Centre at Bomas with the results. They are coming in from all over the country.

8:45 With 13,787 polling stations announced, the IEBC National Tallying Centre system shows Uhuru Kenyatta at 2,801,263 votes. Raila Odinga is at 2,208,727 votes. Musalia Mudavadi has 150,071 votes. Rejected votes are 335,080. The votes cast are 5,587,327.

8:28 Provisional presidential results from Siaya County: Odinga 282,982, Kenyatta 870, Mudavadi 695, Kiyiapi 387, Kenneth 382, Karua 189, Dida 93, Muite 42

8:20 ODM’s Cornel Rasanga wins the Siaya County Governor seat after garnering 142, 901 votes against William Oduol’s 133,900.

8:15 Maina Kamanda elected MP for Starehe constituency after managing 60,635 votes.

8:06 Kenyatta 2,797,632 (53.35pc); Odinga 2,206,481 (42.08pc) with 13,771 out of 31,981 polling stations reporting.

7:55 More than 70 of the 290 Returning Officers arrive at the National Tallying Centre at Bomas; IEBC says officials filling their returns.

7:47 Ganze constituency presidential results: Odinga 22,142, Kenyatta 1,284, Kiyipai 393, Kenneth 391, Mudavadi 324, Karua 283, Dida 167, Muite 88.

7:33 IEBC officials at the Kiambu County Tallying Centre at the Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) close shop, March 6 at around 1.00am. The County Returning Officer Dorcas Manka said the electoral system was not working. She gave officers permission to sleep, rest and report early Wednesday

7:30 nation.co.ke continues live coverage of the Kenya elections. Read our previous live feed.

7:25 Uhuru Kenyatta 2,793, 193 (53.36pc) against Raila Odinga 2,203,746 (42.06pc)

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Anxiety grips voters over Kenya Elections 2013 results delay

Anxiety gripped voters in western Kenya following slow release of election results in most constituencies.

By midday on Tuesday, less than 30 per cent of the votes cast had been counted in Siaya, Vihiga, Homa Bay, Kisumu and Busia counties.

At Tom Mboya Hall, the Kisumu county Tallying centre, vote tallying had not started by noon because ballot boxes had not been delivered.

Vote counting started late in the county’s seven constituencies but provisional results were not announced, causing more worries among voters.

Kisumu County Returning Officer Dolly Akili blamed the delays on late closure of polling stations.

“We hope to have results for the county by late this (Tuesday) evening, and I urge everyone to exercise patience as counting continues,” she said.

A similar situation was experienced in Homa Bay, where vote counting dragged in all the county’s eight constituencies.

In Kisii , there was a standoff at Magena tallying centre in Bomachoge Chache after a presiding officer dumped ballot boxes outside the centre and disappeared.

The presiding officer for Senta went missing with forms for several hours, leaving the ballot boxes with security officers.

It took the intervention of Returning Officer Gilbert Serem to trace the officer, who later emerged claiming he fainted while on the way to the centre.

Consequently, opponents of one candidate, Mr Joel Onyancha, disputed the results, claiming the officer’s disappearance was a plot to rig the poll given that Senta was Mr Onyancha’s home turf.

Eastern Nyanza Elections Coordinator Mwaura Kamwati said he had called agents of all aspirants assigned to Senta to verify the results delivered by the officer.

“We want the agents of both aspirants to verify the results and sign the forms before we can accept to announce the final results,” he said.

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Complexity of the elections to blame for spoilt votes

The complexity of the election is to blame for the high number of spoilt ballots, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Issack Hassan.

As at 10.10am, there were 246,672 spoilt and 104 disputed ballots out of the total 4.23 million presidential votes cast in 34.12 per cent of the polling centres across the country. The size of the spoilt and disputed ballots is however expected to increase as most polling centres continue to report their results to the national tallying centre.

For the first time, Kenyans were voting for six different elective positions namely the president, governor, senator, MP, woman representative and county assembly ward representative.

The presidential ballot, also, for the first time, had the pictures and names of the eight candidates while their running mates only had their names on the ballot.

“Due to the complexity of this election, there is higher number of spoilt votes than we would have wished to see. The IEBC will have a clear count of the spoilt votes at the end of the exercise,” Issack told a media briefing at the Bomas of Kenya where the IEBC’s National Election Centre is situated.

"The Commission has not yet done audit on rejected votes. May be the colour coding was not good, the green was not that strong," Hassan said in reference to the spoilt ballots."

At the same time, TNA’s Uhuru Kenyatta was leading the presidential tally of the provisional results with 2,197,340 votes against ODM’s Raila Odinga who had 1,6510,010 votes out of the 4,029,495 valid votes cast.

Hassan also appealed to the candidates, the parties and their supporters to avoid making premature conclusions since what is being relayed is only provisional, with the final tally expected once all the Returning Officers have filed their returns.

“With about 30 per cent of the polling stations, we want to emphasise the results so far are partial and provisional. We are expecting the Returning Officers to file their returns to the National Tallying Centre by this afternoon. We therefore continue to appeal for patience from the public, the political parties as well as the candidates,” Hassan said.

The IEBC chairman also called on the parties and the candidates to respect the Commission’s authority and accept the results that are announced.

“The IEBC continues to appeal to the parties, the candidates and their supporters to accept the authority of the Commission in conducting, facilitating and managing the elections. The Commission wishes to emphasize the integrity of the results and to accept the outcome,” Hassan said.

“We must acknowledge that in every contest, there are winners and losers. Once again, the Commission wishes to assure the public and the candidates that the Commission, in undertaking its taking constitutional mandate will count and tally every single vote.”

The electronic results transmission had last night suffered technical hitches which slowed down the transmission of results. However, Hassan assured the public that the challenge has been sorted out and the provisional results were streaming in normally.

“We would like to share that at 9.30pm last night, we experienced network slowdown but that has been fixed and the IEBC is confident that there will be successful completion of the counting. As you know there were a number of polling stations where voting continued to accommodate voters who were on the queue at the official closing time,” he said.

The Commission is holding a meeting with political party agents and ICT officers to explain to them the technicalities. Hassan also said the Commission had set up a team to investigate the ICT hitches.

IEBC Deputy CEO Wilson Shollei has also been appointed as the focal person to deal with party agents complaints.

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UHURU TAKES EARLY LEAD

AT least 18 people, including 10 security officers, were killed in the Coast yesterday just before voting started at 6am.

The attacks on polling stations were suspected to be the work of the outlawed Mombasa Republican Council but they did not dampen the spirits of residents who still turned up to vote in large numbers.

Police Inspector General David Kimaiyo quickly airlifted an extra 300 paramilitary personnel to the Coast. He flew to Mombasa and went straight to Miritini where one attack occurred and issued a stern warning.

“We have arrested several suspects who will appear in court shortly. Police officers are further directed to use their firearms as provided in law and ensure that no further loss of lives of police officers and civilians is experienced," he said.

"As much as we want arrests, people with ill motives and intentions to disrupt election must be stopped by all means. We are proud of our officers who lost their lives while on duty protecting innocent wananchi," Kimaiyo said.

MRC officials were unavailable for comment yesterday. Suspected MRC members targeted ambushed police near Miritini police station. They killed Changamwe OCPD Otieno Awour, the OCS, and two police officers.

One Ceska pistol snatched from the slain officers was recovered but another Ceska pistol and two G3 rifles are missing and believed to have been stolen by the attackers.

In a second attack in Kisauni Mishomoroni, a Sergeant from the Prisons department was killed and his AK 47 rifle stolen. Police killed two attackers.

In Kilifi, one Administration Police sergeant was killed and his G3 rifle stolen. In Chumani in Kilifi, a prison warder, a female police constable and a Kenya Forest Service ranger were killed and an AK 47 rifle and a G3 rifle stolen. Eleven suspects have so far been arrested.

According to Kimaiyo, police received reports about a planned attack in Corner Police area within Likoni and removed stones that had been used to block the road.

At around 11 pm, Changamwe police heard that over 200 suspected MRC members with red and blue ribbons armed with different weapons were going to attack a police station in Miritini.

As the OCPD and OCS were proceeding to the area, they fell into an ambush from both side of the road. Kimaiyo said seven suspected MRC members were killed in Changamwe, Kisauni and Kilifi districts during the attacks.

The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslim condemned the incidents as an "act of cowardice" and "sign of desperation."

"Kenyans have shown they want peace and not violence. We urge parents to ensure their sons are not recruited into the illegal group," Supkem spokesperson Faisal Abdul Gatibaru said.

"It's unfortunate that we have lost our officers in the line of duty but we are pursuing the attackers and have reinforced our security ,” said Coast provincial commissioner Samuel Kilele.

Kilifi South returning officer Aisha Abubakar said she had earlier informed the local police boss and intelligence officers of threats to IEBC officials.

She said that her team had been surrounded by armed men at the Chonyi polling station on Sunday which had forced her to relocate the tallying centre from Mtomondoni to KARI.

In Rabai, the chief's office at Kaloleni was also set ablaze and a house in Mishomoroni was burnt. Residents in Kadongo area in Mishomoroni said the gang of 100 youth started terrorizing them at 10 pm.

A man and his two sisters, who had just arrived home from a vigil in Tua Tugawe, sought refuge in a neighbor's house. They said they heard gunshots for several minutes.

"We were later rescued by the community policing team, who escorted us home. On the way there, l saw the body of one of the attackers. He had a headband, red and black ribbons around his ankles and other paraphernalia,” said Athmani Hamisi.

Mishomoroni village elder Joseph Kageha said over 40 armed people came to his house and tried to burn it with petrol. He said the men identified themselves as MRC and told him they had been hired to ensure no-one voted,

“I managed to raise the alarm and the Kisauni OCPD sent officers. It is when they responded that they were attacked by the MRC. We were locked inside the house,” said Kageha.

There was however a huge turnout in the entire county including Kombani, an MRC stronghold. Muslims for Human Rights has deployed over 100 local observers. Its executive director, Khalid Hussein condemned the killings.

Last Friday, detectives were dispatched to Mwaluphamba in Kwale county where over sixty suspected MRC members were spotted taking an oath in the forest by villagers.

Police have been monitoring activities at the various Kayas (sacred forests) which dot the north and south coast.

“We spotted the gang on Friday and we informed police officers from Kwale. There were at least four young men and a well known medicine man from the area as well as people from other regions,” said Mwaluphamba area chief John Katambo Voya.

When the police went to the forest, the group escaped leaving behind a slaughtered goat, an MRC flag, copies of the Koran and some maize flour. 

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ODM confident of win despite of Uhuru lead

The Orange Democratic Movement maintains that it will still carry the day, despite the provisional results placing TNA’s Uhuru Kenyatta ahead of Raila Odinga.

According to the latest provisional tallies, Uhuru leads with 2, 278,306 votes (54 per cent) against Raila’s 1,705,834 (40 per cent). UDF’s Musalia Mudavadi is a distant third with 116,852 according the latest provisional results as at 10:57am.

The Raila’s campaign manager Eliud Owalo said ODM was still confident of winning the elections in the first round, given that IEBC has not released votes from Raila’s strongholds while Uhuru’s strongholds are nearly being exhausted.

“You can clearly see from the same that in our strongholds, results have been received and released by IEBC from an average of less than one to five per cent of the total number of polling stations while in TNA strongholds, the percentage of polling stations from which results has been received and released by IEBC so far is an average of 30-40per cent,” an optimistic Owalo said in a statement.

“In short, we are winning this election and there should be no cause for alarm,” Owalo added.
He singled out Tharaka Nithi County, which produced highly disputed results in the 2007 elections. The County had by the time of the statement reported 35 per cent of the results with Uhuru in the lead. Others are the Rift Valley and Central counties, from where Uhuru draws his strongest support.

ODM’s statement is in contrast to William Ruto, Uhuru’s running mate who last night sounded buoyant of a win. Ruto said the Jubilee Coalition was so far pleased with the results and predicted a favourable poll outcome for their team.

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IEBC assures public over transmission hitches

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission CEO James Oswago has said the the Electronic Result Transmission System used to relay results from polling centres experienced a hitch.

Oswago said the system was operating smoothly from 6 pm when most polling centres closed but as of 9 30 pm the system began to experience what was thought to be “network problems,” but IEBC engineers later discovered the cause to be a “disk space issue on one of the servers,”

Oswago has assured the public that the IEBC engineers have dealt with the matter by providing “additional capacity to the server” which has enabled full transmission of results.

He said chief agents of political parties and their ICT experts have been fully briefed about the issue and ICT experts of the various experts have been working with the IEBC to find a permanent solution to the problem.
The IEBC ceo said the commission has received results from 5,000 polling centres while 28,000 centres are yet to transmit results. He assured kenyans that the the commission has nothing to hide stating that there are “no intermediate places where technical issues can hide,”

Oswago’s statement comes after ODM expressed dissatisfaction with the voting process across the country. ODM chair of the national election board Franklin Bett said that voting in some areas began “on the wrong footing” as the polling book used to register voters forcing officials to identify voters manually.

He added that the IEBC server in various centres also collapsed for close to 6 hours in some polling centres but the IEBC did not give voters in these halls an explanation stating that this will affect the credibility of the process.

Bett also said polling is still ongoing in various centres in Ongata Rongai, Kiminini and Kitale constituency long after midnight.

Bett said that  the IEBC had given an assurance that voting will only be extended until 12 am in areas that have experienced delays or long queues.

Bett said that it is a “violation” for IEBC to relay results while polling is still ongoing saying that these will influence voters how are yet to cast their ballots.

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ODM faults IEBC

ODM chair of the national election board Franklin Bett  has expressed dissatisfaction with delays in polling centres across the country. Bett has said polling is still ongoing in various centres in Ongata Rongai, Kiminini and Kitale constituency long after midnight.

Bett said that  the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission had given an assurance that voting will only be extended until 12 am in areas that have experienced delays or long queues.

Bett said that it is a “violation” for IEBC to relay results while polling is still ongoing saying that these will influence voters how are yet to cast their ballots.

Bett claimed that voting in some areas began “on the wrong footing” as the polling book used to register voters forcing officials to identify voters manually.

He added that the IEBC server in various centres also collapsed for close to 6 hours in some polling centres but the IEBC did not give voters in these halls an explanation stating that this will affect the credibility of the process.

ODM secretary General Anyang’ Nyong’o expressed concerns that agents from ODM have been barred from various polling centres. Nyong’o however expressed confidence that ODM will win the election stating that the party has been undertaking its own tallying whose results are different from those relayed by the IEBC. 

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Kenya's image is at stake, says Mudavadi

AMANI presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi said the whole world is watching how Kenya will conduct elections this year and the elected president will only earn international respect if peace prevails during and after elections.
He also asked residents of West Pokot to elect a credible president who will help to promote international trade with other countries.
“No country which can depend on what it produces alone,” Mudavadi told a campaign rallyat Makutaono stadium in West Pokot county yesterday. He had earlier campaigned in Kacheliba, Sigor and Cheparia towns.
Musalia also dismissed recent opinion poll results and asked residents not to accept the results but instead wait until March 4 to see who will emerge the winner.
“Don’t be shaken with results released by opinion polls. Lets wait and see the president the Kenyans will elect,” he said.
He also asked politicians to let the judicial operate independently as stipulated in the constitution for it to cater for interests of both poor and rich.
He said Kenyans will loose trust in the courts if chief Justice Willy Mutunga is threatened. “We don’t want to go back to days where Kenyans had lost trust in our courts. Our courts are now reformed and Kenyans are fulfilled with judgments issued,” he said.
Musaila said if elected, he will diversify the economy of the county by setting up industries to supplement income generated from livestock.
He said the industries will create jobs to youth and help address the issue of unemployment hence reducing cases of cattle rustling in the county.

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HOW BIG IS RAILA ODINGA'S LEAD?

“There is no reason why Uhuru Kenyatta’s stock should suddenly have risen the way it has. Nothing has changed. Kenyatta is still an ICC indictee (not a suspect, but an indictee, someone against whom what judges consider credible evidence has been laid, which is much more serious).”

Five years ago, as the 2007 election approached, something strange began to happen in the opinion polls conducted by several local polling firms.
A year earlier, on December 23, 2006, a public opinion poll conducted by the then Steadman Group had put Kibaki in the lead in popularity in all provinces except Nyanza.
Overall, he had a 42 per cent approval rating, with Musyoka in second position at 20 per cent and Raila Odinga in third place with 14 per cent.
Over the succeeding year, this picture changed gradually but very decisively, always in the same direction – Kibaki and Musyoka gradually losing support, Odinga gradually gaining.
In September 2007, when Steadman announced the results for its latest monthly poll, Odinga had finally taken the lead, with 47 per cent to Kibaki’s 38 per cent and Musyoka’s eight per cent.
Government supporters now came out to criticise the polls – something they had not done when Kibaki was leading. “Even if Raila is leading, we are not worried,” said roads minister Simeon Nyachae.
“Steadman is a businessman and he is just making money.” Weekly polls by three pollsters were then commissioned by the Daily Nation.
The first results, published simultaneously the following week, on October 7, put Odinga at 46, 46, and 49.6 per cent, with Kibaki at 35, 41 and 39.6 per cent respectively.
(As an interesting aside, Kanu, the monolithic monster people had fought so hard to tame for so many decades, now trailed in the polls with a tiny one per cent rating. It was a situation that would have been unimaginable less than 10 years earlier.)\
The next Steadman poll, published on October 13, just after Kibaki’s launch of his presidential campaign, gave Odinga a 53 per cent approval rating to Kibaki’s 37 and Musyoka’s eight.
PNU was quick to dismiss the poll as “sheer propaganda”, accusing Steadman of working for ODM and the US government. Polls by Infotrak Harris and Strategic Research confirmed Odinga’s widening lead.
Only a poll by the little-known Consumer Insight seemed out of sync with the others, giving Odinga 44 per cent to Kibaki’s 41. It was the beginning.
Another round of polls published on November 4 showed Odinga leading 50 to Kibaki’s 35 (Strategic), and 51.3 to Kibaki’s 32.2 (Infotrak Harris).
Once again, Consumer Insight was out of sync with the others, at 41 per cent for Odinga and 40.6 per cent for Kibaki. The degree of its variation from the other polls began to raise questions.
The next Infotrak Harris poll a week later gave Odinga 50.2 per cent to Kibaki’s 31.8 per cent. But the Steadman poll conducted at the same time showed a narrowing of the gap – 45 per cent for Odinga and 41 per cent for Kibaki, with Musyoka up to 11 per cent.
Six days later, a Consumer Insight poll gave Odinga 40.7 per cent to Kibaki’s 41.4. It was the first time in eight weeks that any poll had rated Kibaki higher than Odinga.
By the following week, all the polls showed a marked narrowing of the gap between Kibaki and Odinga, at (Odinga figures first) 43.2/38.4 (Strategic), 39.5/40.4 (Consumer Insight), and 43.9/ 38.4 (Infrotrak Harris).
On December 7, Infotrak Harris published the results of a poll that showed 52 per cent of voters thought the election results would be rigged.
They were right. There was no reason why Kibaki’s stock should have risen so suddenly. Nothing had happened to make Kenyans spontaneously grow more in favour of Kibaki by a significant percentage.
Ratings do not change just like that, for no good reason. In the same way this year, 2013, there is no reason why Uhuru Kenyatta’s stock should suddenly have risen the way it has.
Nothing has changed. Kenyatta is still an ICC indictee (not a suspect, but an indictee, someone against whom what judges consider credible evidence has been laid, which is much more serious).
Of course, it is well-known that Kenyatta is pouring billions into his campaign – the kind of billions that no other candidate can come close to matching.
Less well-known to most people is that a prominent Kenyan (I have withheld his name) has privately admitted being the conduit for large sums of money that were paid to pollsters in 2007 to raise Kibaki’s profile.
This year, it would appear that there is a much more complex plot afoot, and we are seeing just the tip of this particular iceberg. Let us begin with purpoted political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi’s so-called analysis of purported voting patterns a few weeks ago, which skewed figures massively in favour of Kenyatta and for a few days caused a sensation – as well as alarm and despondency in some quarters.
That was what it was supposed to do, and it was a good piece of propaganda – you have to give Ngunyi that. It fitted seamlessly with William Ruto’s repeated assertion after the launch of Jubilee’s manifesto that “We have the numbers.”
In fact, this was virtually all Ruto had to say to every newscaster who interviewed him at KICC on that day. There was nothing like, “We have the policies” or “We have the programmes”.
No. Just – jubilantly – “We have the numbers.” It sounded alarm bells. Especially because Jubilee does not have the numbers. Ngunyi’s purported analysis of the numbers was itself analysed at length by this newspaper in last week’s Siasa section, which asked, ‘Was Ngunyi’s purported analysis just a hoax?’
I believe it was. Ngunyi’s half-baked figures and selective data do not stand up to scrutiny. Most notably, he completely ignored all the regions of the country where the coming election will be won and lost.
For me, it continues to be astonishing that TV stations and others persist in putting Ngunyi in the spotlight as some kind of ‘expert’ – when all his predictions as far as I can remember have been spectacularly wrong.
His services as a columnist, making very wild and garbled assertions, have also twice been discontinued at another newspaper (whether by him or by the newspaper I don’t know).
The articles he wrote were characterised by a variety of analogies through which Ngunyi attempted to explain what he purported to present as the vice in the country – the articles themselves finally metamorphosing into incomprehensible nonsense.
Ngunyi in fact has a very chequered history. Just before the 2007 elections, when Ngunyi was working for President Mwai Kibaki, he was named as the author of a report entitled ‘Anglo Leasing: Some Thoughts’, a brutal document advising the president to criminalise whistleblower John Githongo’s release of the dossier on the huge Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal.
The aim was clearly to silence Githongo and to wipe details of the scam from Kenyan collective memory, as well as to ensure there was no Anglo-Leasing-related loss of votes for Kibaki.
Ngunyi denied being the author of the document, as reported in the Standard newspaper of January 28th 2006, but suspicions persisted.
The document’s author had demanded shs.2.2 million for consultancy services to counter Githongo’s damaging information. Ngunyi had reasons for revenge on Githongo.
In 2001, Ngunyi was sued for allegedly embezzling more than shs.10 million shillings, awarded some time in the 1990s by the Ford Foundation to an NGO called Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust (Sareat), of which Ngunyi was a director.
Ngunyi was sued alongside Zimbabwean minister Professor Jonathan Moyo, who was working as a Ford Foundation programme officer at the time the money allegedly disappeared.
Moyo is also a purported political scientist – one who switched from being a sharp critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government to being his chief propagandist and, according to various Zimbabwean publications, was a major player in Zimbabwe’s crackdown on journalists, the judiciary and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of (now prime minister) Morgan Tsvangirai.
There are many guns for hire in Zimbabwe. Kenya is no different. In 1998, Ngunyi’s NGO had engaged Githongo to edit a regional political economy magazine called East African Alternatives.
According to reports, the magazine folded after four issues, and its closure was as a result of audit queries made by PriceWaterhouseCooper.
This led to the suit against Ngunyi by the Ford Foundation. And the Foundation’s star witness for the prosecution was to be none other than John Githongo.
The case was apparently later withdrawn, after Sareat agreed to repay the funds in question – but not before Ngunyi had written to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asking them to probe alleged forgery of documents and money laundering at the Ford Foundation’s East Africa and New York offices.
In another strange twist of events, Ngunyi also reportedly turned turtle and offered to act as a prosecution witness against Moyo. In the document ‘Anglo Leasing: Some Thoughts’, the author recommended that Githongo be repatriated from Britain, where he had sought asylum after releasing the Anglo-Leasing dossier, and that he be charged with high treason.
“Githongo has arrogated himself a high moral ground,” the document told Kibaki. “He is telling the world that ‘you are bad and he is good’. You need to deflate him. You need to cast him as an over-enthusiastic officer with good intentions but completely naive.
But more fundamentally, you must criminalise what he is doing.” The author warned that, without this kind of action, the government in the court of public opinion was “guilty as charged”.
The author continued, “The President is implicated directly or otherwise as per the Githongo dossier. This is why we must interpret public anger as a indirect assault on the President, not the implicated ministers... we must not attempt to resolve this scam, not before the 2007 elections.”
The document also advised the government to release the Goldenberg report in a “mirror image tactic” that would “infuriate and confuse”, and recommended that the government must not fire or suspend any implicated politicians.
“They form a ring around the president,” the document continued. “To remove them is to expose Kibaki. They must therefore remain in place and take the blame while inside.
If you remove them, the public will inevitably go for the president, demanding his resignation as well.” In his ‘tyranny of numbers’ scenario a few weeks back, Ngunyi served up several “estimates” of Kenyan voter numbers, but provided no coherent logic or calculations to justify these numbers, making wild assertions arrived at by no known polling methodology.
And that brings us to the current opinion polls and their methodologies and curious anomalies. All the pollsters in the last poll published indicated that they did face-to-face interviews using a digital pad.
While a digital pad is convenient for the researcher, a process audit would find it hard to unearth instances where individual questionnaire entries had been altered.
A hard-copy questionnaire lends itself well to such an interrogation process. Another concern regarding face-to-face interviews is the place of interview.
The pollsters claimed to have done interviews at households between February 13 and 15 – Wednesday to Friday, all working days. Who would have been interviewed in these houses? Househelps?
Househelps have their valid opinions too, but such an information-gathering approach totally obviates the participation of those of working age,18 years and above, who happen to be the main body of voters and thus should be the target respondents for this kind of poll.
Household face-to-face interviews would be appropriate for household consumer market research (Do you use Harpic? Omo?) but definitely not for this kind of political opinion polling.
A house-based poll also works against the main benefits of the random process. If the pollster knows your house, it means your stated political opinion can be traced back to you.
Since your political opinion can get you killed, evicted or isolated, imagine how a respondent in Bondo would feel about publicly professing support for Kenyatta, or one in Gatundu doing the same for Odinga.
A true random process leaves a respondent anonymous, while giving them an equal chance to participate. The process reportedly being used is not random.
More worrying is that, according to evidence leaking out of polling houses, and contrary to reports made to the public, there were actually no house-based face-to-face interviews.
Pollsters have instead reportedly been conducting phone interviews based on a frame of registered mobile-phone users. While this is convenient and significantly cheaper, it is scientifically lacking in the necessary discipline.
The sampling frame for political polling must be the national voters’ register. A database of mobile-phone users does not reveal such crucial demographics as the age of the respondent (to qualify them to vote), whether they are registered voters or in which voter region the phone-user resides.
Sample size distribution is done by regions – yet you cannot verify the regional location of a respondent in a mobile-phone interview. They could be anywhere.
In addition, mobile-phone accessibility in rural areas, where more than 60 per cent of registered voters reside, is unreliable at best, absent at worst.
And crucial is the fact that, not unlike house-based interviews, phone interviews do not support the random process. Even more worrying is the fact that any such non-random process is fraught with potential abuse.
Any pollster with a mind to do so can buy 1,000 mobile lines and distribute them to that number of persons, who then participate in the phone interviews.
There is no proof with this kind of non-random polling that this is not happening, and largely influencing responses. There are many other questions regarding sampling.
Opinion polling is about measuring differences, and thus analysis and presentation focus on measures of dispersion –variance, range and percentile.
For this reason, concern is about factors that occasion difference in opinion. Such factors include age, gender, social class, education level and region.
The first four cannot be determined before the poll and are usually allowed to emerge naturally through the random process, but the overall required sampling frame is the national voter register, and the sample size distribution is according to the weight for each electoral area.
In the poll results released on February 18, pollsters Ipsos Synovate, Strategic and Infotrak claim to have employed the appropriate sampling factors, but the published results raise more questions than answers.
There was no firm attempt to distribute the sample on the basis of counties, the largest electoral boundary. Strategic gave a list of 32 out of the 47 counties where their research was allegedly conducted but not how the sample was distributed to those counties.
No intra-county sample size distribution is discussed by any of the pollsters. Nairobi, Rift Valley, Western and Central are significantly over-sampled by Strategic Africa, while Rift Valley and North Eastern are significantly under-sampled.
A closer look into the counties they reached reveals a significant bias towards Nyanza, Central, Western, Lower Eastern and North / Central Rift. The pollsters’ rationale is that they focused on the top 30 or so counties in terms of registered voters.
But the 32 counties sampled by Strategic Africa account for only 33.3 per cent of the registered voters. The other two pollsters’ samples also average less than 35 per cent.
The implication is that the rest of the counties that are allegedly insignificant account for nearly 65 per cent of the registered voters! The sampling distribution is clearly not representative.
This is of particular importance considering that this significant ‘minority’ (actually, not the minority but the majority, and also the same persons who were ignored by Ngunyi in his lamentably inadequate – read deliberately abstruse and misleading – ‘analysis’) will form the deciding vote.
The counties sampled are traditional strongholds of the two main presidential candidates and tend to cancel each other out in terms of registered voters, thus explaining the ‘tie’ purportedly captured by the pollsters.
Surely, any pollster worth his or her salt who professed to have polled a ‘tie’ at 45 per cent – to which a candidate needs to add only six per cent to win – would consider a constituency of 65 per cent somewhat significant!
The numbers presented in the analysis tables thus appear to reveal a deficient weighting system. It gives a false picture. Ruto does not have the numbers he thinks he has.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, overall, these polls are conducted to a methodological and presentation design aimed at confirming an ‘election too close to call’, which would justify demand for a run-off, or a particular desired result – to be achieved by hook or by crook. Shades of 2007.
Altogether, the methodology and resulting figures appear to make nonsense of the polls being bandied about, regardless of who might seem to be in the lead. The potential difference, however, appears to be largely in Odinga’s favour.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

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IEBC publishes nomination rules

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has published the rules for submission of party lists for the special seats requiring parties to distribute the positions across ethnic groups and gender.

According to the rules, the first three nominees on the list for National Assembly and senate seats must include a person to represent the youth, the disabled and a worker in order of priority.
“A party must provide a party definition of any other ‘special interests’ in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. One nominee cannot represent more than one special interest. The party list must indicate the special interest that each nominee represents,” the rules state.
Each party participating in the General Election is supposed to submit 12 names of people to be considered for nomination as MPs, 16 names for senate women positions and two for youth senate positions.

The rules require parties to distribute the positions across the ethnic groups in the country and will alternate between male and female candidates where a common list of both sexes is allowed.
Though the special seats had been initially reserved for special interest groups only, MPs amended the Elections Act to allow the losers at party primaries as well as presidential aspirants to be included in the list.

The party lists of special seats for marginalised groups at the county assembly will have eight names. Based on the revised legal time frames, IEBC has directed parties to submit the lists before the nomination exercise starts on January 29.
“The nominees to the party list shall have similar qualifications as those required for candidates contesting elections as members of Parliament and in accordance with Article 99 of the Constitution,” IEBC said.

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Court directs IEBC to allow registered prisoners to vote

The High Court has today directed the IEBC to formulate a mechanism that allows prisoners to participate in the forthcoming March 4 general elections.

Justice David Majanja who delivered the ruling stated that prisoners have a constitutional right to vote as a vulnerable group. Majanja further said that the IEBC should in future register prisoners to participate in referendums and elections.

The ruling was in response to a petition by civil society group Kituo Cha Sheria which had gone to court to obtain orders to have IEBC reopen the voter registration process to accommodate prisoners.

The group further wanted the IEBC to deploy returning officers to the prisons to oversee the registration of inmates. Majanja however declined to issue the order saying that the process cannot be reopened as it would bring confusion to the entire electoral process.
The IEBC had declined to reopen the voter registration process that ran from November 18 to December 18 last year stating that it was strained for time if it was still to hold credible elections.

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Raila sister quits Kisumu race ‘for the sake of peace’

Dr Oburu Oginga and his rivaL in the Siaya gubernatorial race, Mr William Oduol, were on Monday dropped from the Orange ticket.

Ms Ruth Odhiambo Odinga, the Prime Minister’s sister, also bowed out of the Kisumu race for governor following protests and incidents of violence.

Dr Oburu, the Finance assistant minister and the PM’s elder brother, and Mr Oduol were denied the ODM ticket by the party’s Disputes Arbitration Panel.
However, former Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo, whose nomination was also disputed, was given the nod to defend the seat.

ODM national elections board chairman Franklin Bett could not, however, say how other disputes in Nyanza, including the one involving Medical Services minister Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o had been resolved, only insisting that the party would release a full list of all its candidates for the March 4 General Election on Tuesday.

Mr Bett said the list was being finalised following a new requirement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission that the names of running mates of governors be included.
The big winner in the Siaya race is Mr Otieno Okanja, who was nominated by ODM to fly the party’s flag.

The party said the primaries in which both Dr Oburu and Mr Oduol claim victory were marred with malpractices.
Dr Oburu said he reluctantly accepted the party’s decision, adding that the PM and he had come under a lot of pressure over his candidature.
He accused the National Intelligence Service, the Provincial Administration and the police of being behind a smear campaign against the Odinga family.

“There were political interests in the affairs of our county and the Odinga family,” Dr Oburu said, adding that it was his constitutional right to vie despite being the PM’s brother.
“I have been MP for the last 19 years yet no one has questioned my relationship with Prime Minister Raila Odinga,” Dr Oburu said, adding that he would campaign vigorously for Mr Odinga’s win in the first round.
Mr Oduol did not attend Monday night’s ODM press conference at Serena Hotel.
Speaking earlier in Nairobi, Ms Odinga said she is in ODM to stay and that she would campaign for Mr Odinga to capture the country’s presidency.

She said she will also support whoever wins the ODM ticket in the Kisumu gubernatorial race.
Ms Odinga said she had voluntarily stepped down and was not influenced by the Prime Minister.
“I have been vying as Ruth Odhiambo Odinga and not as a member of the Odinga family. I campaigned for the seat on my own...I decided to step down for the sake of peace and sanity in Kisumu. I would like peace to be in the county,” she said, adding that she was still young and would still vie for an elective position in future.

She said she had sought an elective seat because she did not want to be nominated to any position.
Violence erupted in Kisumu at the weekend after supporters of Mr Jack Ranguma, Ms Odinga’s rival for the ticket, took to the streets following reports that the PM’s sister had been declared the winner.

Calm was only restored after Mr Bett refuted the claims. In Nairobi on Monday, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) gave beleaguered political parties a few more hours to compile their lists of candidates.

With the nominations having been mismanaged, leading to violence in places, the parties were cagey with their candidate lists for fear of causing more protests.
Both Cord and Jubilee were also trying to resolve tens of disputes.
The IEBC moved the deadline for submission of the lists from 5pm to midnight, allowing the parties more badly needed hours.

By the time of going to press, neither Cord nor Jubilee was ready to publish its list, despite calling press conferences.
The parties are particularly concerned about the effect the nomination battles will have on their electoral fortunes and the fact that many of their supporters will be facing each other in the election.

The nightmare has been spawned by discontent arising from the controversial party primaries and last-minute party-hopping that redefined the battlefronts within the coalitions’ partner parties in the Coast region.

The reality is stark in a number of counties, with Taita Taveta, Lamu, Mombasa and Kwale presenting the biggest headaches for both the Cord and Jubilee coalitions in terms of the looming “internal battles” in the March 4 elections.

Reported by Lucas Barasa, Mark Agutu and Mwakera Mwajefa

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I CAN RUN KENYA WHILE ON TRIAL, SAYS UHURU

JUBILEE Coalition presidential hopeful Uhuru Kenyatta says that he will face no difficulties in running the country even if he is required to be at The Hague for trial.
The Deputy Prime Minister told Al Jazeera he and his running-mate, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, will continue to appear before the ICC even if they are elected President and Deputy President in March.

He added that there will be no vacuum of power in the country despite the Rome Statutes requiring that the accused must be present in court during the trial.

"There is absolutely no power vacuum because one thing that people always tend to forget is that Kenya is not a banana republic. Kenya is a country that actually has really firm and clear institutions in place," Uhuru told Al Jazeera's Folly Bah Thibault in the interview to be broadcast tomorrow.

Uhuru, who has been touted as one of the front-runners in the elections, said that since the two cases are different and there was a possibility that they would not be required in court at the same time.

"And we also are not facing similar charges. We are never there at the same time if at all. So consequently the system and the state will continue to run regardless of the court. The two are not interlinked," Uhuru said.

Uhuru and Ruto are among four Kenyans the ICC has charged with crimes against humanity in relation to the 2007-08 post-election violence. The other two are former Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura and radio presenter Joshua Sang.

Uhuru said he is confident about the outcome of his trial at The Hague which kicks off in April - a month after the country goes to the polls. There is a possibility that the country will be holding the presidential run-off, if there is no winner in round one, on the same date the trials start.
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has told the court that she will need more than one year to present her case against Uhuru, Ruto and their co-accused.

Thibault asked Uhuru if being elected as president would be a vote of confidence against the ICC and if this would be a sign of vindication.

Uhuru said that though this was not a proof of innocence, it would show that Kenyans are not confident with the charges brought against him and Ruto.

"I am not going to say that it means I am innocent but it will show as we have consistently stated that the charges and how they have been brought about, the Kenyans themselves put to question the charges that have been leveled against us. Clearly… I am not saying that international justice doesn’t have a purpose… But if Kenyans do vote for us, it will mean that Kenyans themselves have questioned how and the process that has landed us at the ICC but that does not mean that we will cease to cooperate because as I have said most importantly we understand and recognise the rule of law and we will continue to cooperate as long as we are signatories to the Rome Statute," Uhuru said.

At least 1,133 people were reported to have died in the violence that also led to the displacement of 650,000 Kenyans from their homes.
Uhuru said he is innocent and denies any links with the Mungiki sect, one of the key militias involved in some of the violence.

The DPM also said he believes his main opponent in the March presidential race, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, bears the political responsibility for what happened after the 2007 elections.
Uhuru said neither he nor Ruto were running for presidency in 2007 and thus Raila, who is the Cord Alliance presidential nominee, should be asked to explain who was responsible for the violence.

"So consequently, you who wants to assume leadership, you who wants to give this country directions, you who is leading a team, ultimately that is where responsibility accounts and matters, so consequently that question should be addressed by the two individuals who were seeking presidency in 2007," Uhuru said.

Asked whether Raila should be charged at the ICC, Uhuru responded: "The question that I was asked by Mr Ocampo when I was at the pre-trial was whether Raila Odinga should face criminal charges in the ICC… I said I am not an investigator, but what I do know is that Raila Odinga has political responsibility for the chaos that occurred in 2007. I stand by that position."

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PARTIES PLAN SOFT LANDING FOR LOSERS

Major political parties were last night busy working on various modalities of retaining losers in today's primaries which are expected to be very competitive

The outcome of today's nominations will have a strong bearing on the continued survival of the pre-election coalitions and in some areas a nomination ticket guarantees aspirants a win in the general elections.

The IEBC will officially receive nominees for Parliament, Senate, governor, women’s representatives, and independent candidates between January 31 and February 1.

As part of the strategy to contain the anticipated fall-outs, major political parties have held back the preparation of lists of the persons they hope to nominate to the National Assembly, Senate and County assemblies until after the conclusion of the primaries today. Parties are expected to present their lists of people they hope to nominate before January 29th. The lists will be final and cannot be altered.

Apart from promising those who lose out in the nominations appointment to various organizations and government departments, Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga, Jubilee's Uhuru Kenyatta, Wiper's Kalonzo Musyoka, URP's William Ruto and UDF's Musalia Mudavadi are also understood to be promising those who are unsuccessful that they will be included in the presidential campaign teams and other county campaign teams.

ODM has gone a step further and promised those who will not be successful today that they will be named Cabinet Secretaries, ambassadors, commissioners to various commissions and some will be given parastatal jobs if the party wins the elections.

"We have told all our members that we value them. Whether you get a nomination or not you have a role to play in the party and in the future. The nominations are not a matter of life and death," said ODM chairman Henry Kosgey yesterday.

The appointments to most of these key position is no longer the sole preserve of the executive as Parliament has to vet and ratify the nominees.
TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja also assured party members that the party will accommodate all those who lose in the primaries.
"We have told our members that all of them are important that we will accommodate them," said Sakaja.
Ruto was also last night busy reaching out to some of his key supporters in Rift Valley who are going head to head in the nominations with promises of government jobs if they stayed with URP.
According to the Jubilee coalition agreement, Uhuru and Ruto will have some leeway to directly nominate up to 12 per cent of candidates of all the parliamentary seats in the election. A 12-member elections board will determine who will get the direct nominations.

“The presidential candidate and deputy presidential candidate will retain residual discretion in very limited circumstances to determine instances where both the resources of the coalition permit both parties to issue nomination certificates provided that such instances shall not exceed 12 per cent of the total number of parliamentary seats,” says the coalition agreement.
The National Assembly will have 12 nominated MPs to represent special interests including the youth, persons with disabilities and workers.

The Senate will have in total 20 slots for nominations with 18 already reserved for women.
There will be 16 women who will be nominated by the parties in according with their proportion of members of the Senate elected on the March 4 elections.
There will also be two nominated members, a woman and a man representing the youth.
There will also be two more nominated Senators, a man and a woman representing persons with disabilities.

For the County Assembly, the number of those to be nominated in each county will remain unknown until after the results of the elections are announced and the gender parity of those elected is weighed.
The number of nomination slots will be determined based on how many more members are required to ensure no more than two-thirds of the membership of the assembly are of the same gender.
Each political party is required to submit to the IEBC six separate lists for those to be nominated.
The first list will be for the 12 MP slots, the second list will be for the 16 women Senators, and the remaining two lists will be for persons representing the youth and those with disabilities.
There will also be a list for individuals that the party hopes to nominate in the county assemblies to ensure gender parity and also another list for those who are likely to be nominated to represent marginalised groups, including persons with disabilities and the youth.

The names in each list are supposed to be listed in order of priority. Article 34 (9) of the Elections Act provides that “the party list may contain a name of any Presidential or Deputy Presidential candidate nominated for an election.”

The IEBC according to Section 54 (5) of the Elections (General) Regulations, 2012 has powers to reject a nominee submitted by a political party for any elective post if that nominee is not qualified to be elected to the office for which the nomination is sought as specified under the Constitution or the Elections Act.

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Bett flees Bomas as angry aspirants bay for his blood

ODM national elections board had to find a another venue to compile their final list of nominees after disgruntled aspirants invaded their Bomas of Kenya base.

Irate aspirants stormed the venue to demand assurances of fair play from the Roads minister Franklin Bett led team. Bett and his team had to be whisked away by their security details leaving the aspirants helpless and stranded.

A section of aspirants who claim to have won their nominations now fear that they may be locked out of the coming elections.

They are complaining that the party's elections board is taking too long to announce them as winners, raising speculations that “something could be cooking”.

“It is not fair to be taken this far. The elections board has let us down. We will not have no time to lodge our petitions because the parties have until tomorrow (today) to conclude all emerging complaints through their tribunals,” said Cyprian Awiti, who contested for the Homa Bay county governor.

Awiti, who was declared winner by the county returning officer John Mulei against former Communications Commission of Kenya chairman Philip Okundi, said the delay has caused confusion and tension among supporters.

“The social media is abuzz with claims that Okundi has won. The board should take charge and declare the right results. They should not be announced by any other person other than the board because it is the body authorised to do so,” Awiti said.
Gladys Wanga, a women representative contestant in the county said the people had made their choice which must be respected.

“The people of Homa Bay have clearly expressed their views through the ballot. They voted me in as theircandidate and it will not be proper if am denied the right to represent them,” said Wanga.
Yesterday, ODM recorded more than 500 petitions from the concluded nominations. Most of the petitions are from Nyanza province. However, Bett said the party will hasten the hearing of the lodged cases.

“We have our tribunal panels seating at the county levels. Each group has three members to hear and determine the complaints emanating from the aspirants. Our national tribunal at the secretariat will only hear appeals,” said Bett.

ODM started issuing certificates to successful aspirants yesterday, majority of who were nominated unopposed yesterday.

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