IEBC doing "everything possible" to relay results

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Tuesday, March 5  2013 at  12:49

 

Voters queue to cast their ballot at Moi Avenue primary school in Starehe constituency in Nairobi, on March 4 2013. The IEBC chairman Issack Hassan has said the commission is doing everything possible to ensure returning officers who have declared results arrive in Nairobi with the certified results. FILE PHOTO/JOAN PERERUAN   NATION MEDIA GROUP

The chairman of Kenya’s electoral commission Isaack Hassan has said the body is doing “everything possible” to ensure the returning officers who have declared results arrive in Nairobi with the certified results.Speaking to journalists at the National Tallying Centre at Nairobi’s Bomas of Kenya, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, said the commission was aware of the complaints about the slow delivery of results, and that the matter was now fixed.“At 9.30pm (Monday) night, there was a network slowdown in the transmission of results from the polling centres. That is now fixed and the IEBC is confident that there will be successful completion of the counting and transmission of results,” said Mr Hassan.So far, the IEBC’s National Tallying Centre has received results from 11,913 polling centres out of the over 33,000. Mr Uhuru Kenyatta has 2,429,895 votes; Mr Raila Odinga 1,823,384; Mr Musalia Mudavadi had 122,152, Mr Peter Kenneth had 25,872, Ms Martha Karua had 16,269, Prof James ole Kiyiapi had 15,084, Mr Mohammed Dida had 13,745 and Mr Paul Muite had 4,580.There are 275,808 votes that are rejected.

Mr Hassan said political party agents had raised complaints about the transmission of results, and he had met them and addressed their concerns. The agents were scheduled to go into another meeting with the IEBC.“We’re yet to receive provisional results from 23,000 polling stations in the country.  Nobody should celebrate; nobody should complain. It is not time for celebration or to commiserate,” said Mr Hassan.Mr Hassan said his team will not repeat the mistakes of the defunct ECK which bungled the 2007 General Election. “We are very much conscious about that and that’s why we invested in this system… we have no intention of changing the results that come from polling station or the tallying centre. Each vote that was cast will be counted, and it is going to count,” said Mr Hassan.“Please don’t jump to conclusions. The commission is an impartial arbiter. Your job was to contest the elections; our job was to conduct the election. Please allow us to do the job.”He appealed to media houses to “manage public expectations”, and said, if there was any discrepancy, the commissioners and other senior officials were ready to respond."Do not to make any premature conclusions on the results.  The commission is the only authority mandated by the Constitution to announce the results. Please resist and desist from making any judgments or calls on who has won the election,” said Mr Hassan.

He said each of the election officers will be held personally liable for any malpractice within their respective polling centres.“If any polling station reports results more than the registered voters, that’s an automatic cancellation,” the IEBC chairman said, as he vouched for the integrity of the voters’ register.Mr Hassan mourned the presiding officer in Kangema constituency, Murang’a County who was shot and killed in what the police have termed as “an accidental shooting”. He described Mr Waiganji Mwaniki as a hardworking officer.