Observers detail Kenya vote count irregularities
The spark for Kenya’s firestorm of ethnic violence was lit inside a cavernous meeting hall in downtown Nairobi, where election officials over four days doctored vote counts, dismissed eye-popping irregularities and thwarted monitoring by independent observers to deliver a razor-thin victory to President Mwai Kibaki. Observers who were allowed into the vote-tallying center on Dec. 29 and 30, hours before the results were announced, said there was so much systematic fraud by Kenya’s government-appointed election commission that it’s impossible to know who really won.
The extent of the commission’s deceptions has faded into the background as more than 800 Kenyans have been killed in ethnic clashes and police crackdowns. The events also have deeply unsettled the Bush administration, which has relied on Kenya as an ally in the war on terror and a bulwark of stability in East Africa.
Official results gave Kibaki an edge of 231,728 votes, or 2 percent, out of about 10 million cast. Initial results of an exit poll by the U.S.-funded International Republican Institute found that rival Raila Odinga had won.
Election officials allowed five accredited Kenyan observers into the tallying center in Nairobi only in the final phase of vote-counting, and three of them shared their accounts with McClatchy.
All said that the gravest cheating occurred in that room, where commissioners – all appointed by Kibaki – compiled returns before announcing them to the public.
The observers spoke in interviews and quoted from a joint log of their experiences, titled “Countdown to Deception,” which Kenyan rights groups are circulating.
The long-serving chairman of Kenya’s election commission played an active role in the deception, the observers said. When a tallying officer presented results showing voter turnout at 115 percent in Maragua, a Kibaki stronghold in the central highlands, commission Chairman Samuel Kivuitu didn’t invalidate the result as required by law, but allowed a commissioner to reduce the figure to 85 percent and announced the results an hour later.
That was the pattern that observers reported: Results were announced even when documents were missing, incomplete, unsigned by officers or party representatives, incorrectly tabulated, photocopied or forged.
“Both sides stole votes,” said Julius Melli, a 31-year-old Kenyan radiographer who witnessed the tallying of Maragua and other locales. “But Kibaki stole more, and they stole it inside the tallying center.” The Electoral Commission of Kenya, an independent body whose members are appointed by the president, had run national elections in 2002 and 2005 that were praised for their openness and accuracy.
But except for Kivuitu, who had served as chairman since 1997, this was a largely different commission. As members faced term limits in the months before the vote, Kibaki – facing the stiffest presidential challenge ever in Kenya – packed the 22-person body with 17 new commissioners. All were considered Kibaki allies, and none had ever run an election.
“These people were criminals,” said Ben Sihanya, a Stanford-educated constitutional law professor who also observed the tallying. “They were committing crimes at the behest of Kibaki’s government.”
Election officials could not be reached for comment, but the commission has taken out a two-page, unsigned advertisement in Kenyan newspapers to deny wrongdoing.
Koki Muli, the co-chair of the Kenya Domestic Observers Forum, suspected problems soon after the polls closed on the evening of Dec. 27. Her network of observers monitoring the vote-counting in polling stations immediately began sending preliminary results by phone and text messages. But for two days, in the Nairobi convention hall where the election commission had set up shop – surrounded by hundreds of journalists, observers and party agents – Kivuitu announced only some of the returns.
Observers grew suspicious when results from Kibaki’s central Kenya stronghold weren’t read. The delays were sparking protests. “It was necessary for us to observe the tallying,” Muli said.
SacBee
Next entry: The root problems
Previous entry: US Backs Off 'Ethnic Cleansing' in Kenya