Tag Archives: Uhuru Kenyatta

Kenya’s election “compromised and contaminated” or “compromised and bungled” by IEBC finds Supreme Court

Posted on by
Reply

The Supreme Court of Kenya’s long awaited reading of its full opinion on the presidential election petition this morning squarely hammered the discrepancies between the process requirements of the law and what the evidence showed  happened.

The Court found explicitly, for example, that the affidavit submitted by the IEBC asserting that all of the tally papers had security features was contradicted by the documentary evidence eventually produced by the IEBC under order of the Court in the hearing.

The Judiciary website seems to have been down from before the announcement so I will have to wait to read the opinion.

The Court made clear that there would be no basis for it to uphold a similarly compromised process in a fresh election.

The ball is squarely in the “court” of the IEBC and its advocates and funders to grapple with the “contamination” and its causes to find a solution.

(On the submission of the Preliminary Statements of Election Observation Missions as evidence to bolster the defense of the IEBC, the Court said they could not be considered as they did not go beyond looking at the voting and counting at a sample of polling stations.  This is good news in correcting one of the flaws from the original 2013 presidential petition litigation.)

Update: Business Daily: “”Supreme  Court says IEBC failures led to poll nullification”.   

Globe and Mail:  “Kenyan Court blasts Election Commission as political tensions rise”

FREE, FAIR AND CREDIBLE? Turning The Spotlight On Election Observers in Kenya | The Elephant

Posted on by
Reply

Published today in The Elephant: FREE,FAIR AND CREDIBLE? Turning The Spotlight On Election Observers in Kenya | The Elephant by Ken Flottman.

Kenya Election – France24 Debate with EU Chief Obsever and Nanjala Nyabola (and more)

Posted on by
Reply

A worthwhile 45 minute discussion on the status of the Kenyan election in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling including particularly the role of the election observers:

France 24 Debate – “Kenya Back to the Polls: Landmark Ruling, Renewed Uncertainty”

Guests:
Marietje SCHAAKE
Dutch MEP, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats

Patrick SMITH
Editor in Chief, The Africa Report

Nanjala NYABOLA
Writer and political analyst

Roland MARCHAL
Senior fellow at CNRS, Horn of Africa Specialist

And here from Quartz Africa: “Kenya Elections 2017 – Role of International Election Observers under scrutiny after Kenya’s presidential election annulment.”

Maina Kiai in his Saturday Nation column submitted before the Supreme Court announced its ruling annulling the election had this to say:

INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS

And it has been disappointing to see international observers — some domiciled in Kenya and some from outside — play that same game. Is this because they don’t think we deserve better?

Or is this guilt about the waste of millions of dollars spent on the IEBC? Or is it because the election result of August 10 is exactly what these observers wanted?

If it is the latter, why on earth do we ever have elections in the first place? International observers — aside from the EU Observation Mission (not the EU in Kenya) — set a new low for what it means to do elections observations.

Best overall international piece so far on Kenya Supreme Court decision

Posted on by
1

Lots of good journalism out today, but this story from Peter Fabricus in my evening Daily Maverick Weekend Thing strikes me as hitting many of the right notes: “Kenya’s courts step up to electoral plate.”

One of the most important lessons from today is how cowed Kenya’s media really is by the Government.  This decision did not have to come as quite such a suprise if Kenya’s media had felt free–or been brave enough–to just cover the polling stations and constituency tally centres.  But we went through this in 2007 (when results were broadcast then taken down), and 2013 when self-censorship was the order of the day.

Today, Kenya took a big step forward on the rule of law — a sign that perhaps the press can become in the future in fact as free as the Constitution provides and the West pretends.

For Kenyan must reads, start with Nanjala Nyabola, “Why I’m proud to be an African today,” at IRINnews.com.

Kenya Election: How IEBC CEO explained what was legally required for electronic Results Transmission and how KIEMS was to meet requirement

Posted on by
Reply

“IEBC’s high-tech system to guard against ballot stuffing” The Standard July 22, 2017

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has assured that the integrity of the August 8 election has been guaranteed through tamper-proof technology.

The Kenya Integrated Elections Management Systems (KIEMS) has unique features that will make double voting, ballot stuffing, and irreconcilable voting patterns impossible. IEBC is already preparing to deploy 45,000 KIEMS kits to be used in all the 40,883 polling stations across the country.

Every polling station has been allocated a Kit with a maximum number of 700 voters depending on the size of the polling centre. By implication, voters in a polling station cannot exceed the allocated number.

The KIEMS technology has two main functions in this election. The first is biometric identification of voters on the election day and results transmission after counting the votes.

The Commission has made it mandatory for all voters to be identified biometrically to close the doors for possibility of resurrection of dead voters.

IEBC Chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba said the Commission has invested heavily in technology and can guarantee successful transmission of election results.

“We have no choice really. The law already demands of us to electronically transmit presidential results from the polling station to the tallying centres,” he said.

After counting of results, the presiding officers in the presence of party agents are expected to type the total number of votes garnered by each candidate into the kit.

The kit aggregates the results automatically and the total number of votes cast for all the candidates is recorded. In cases where the number of voters exceeds the total number of registered voters, the kits shall automatically reject the results. This measure, according to the Commission, effectively makes ballot stuffing impossible.

As an additional measure to guarantee the integrity of elections results, the presiding officer shall scan Form 34A using the KIEMS kit. The Form 34A is signed by both the presiding officer and party agents. Once scanned, the presiding officer shall, together with the text results, send the same to the national tallying centre and constituency tallying centres.

The kit shall equally report turnout trends periodically throughout the day. With this kind of monitoring, the Commission says, ability to identify abnormal voting patterns is guaranteed.

At the end of the voting, said Mr Chiloba, the presiding officers in the presence of party agents are required to reconcile the number of voters recorded by KIEMS as having voted and the number of ballot papers issued.

“We have two procedures that minimise the risk of ballot stuffing. One, the voter turnout as recorded by KIEMS. Two, the ballot papers reconciliation that happens at the end of voting. The number of ballots papers issued and the records of voter turnout as registered by KIEMS should be able to reconcile,” he said.

The Commission contends that once the presiding officer has pressed the “Submit” button, the results cannot be changed by anyone.

Using an encrypted format, the results shall then be transmitted to the tallying centres through a secure network in real-time. The public will be able to view the results online. Similarly, Media will have a dedicated connection to access real-time results as well.

According to ICT sources within the commission, the KIEMS have a unique in-built audit trail. The in-build audit trail enables the commission to collect all the kits and to retrieve records from the SD cards for any analysis at the end of voting. This in-built accountability tools implies that the process of voting can be subjected to objective scrutiny at any point in time after voting.
.  .  .  .

Clearly, much of what Chiloba and the IEBC described here just over two weeks before the election did not actually happen after the votes were cast and counted on election day.

Why?  Well, much of the explanation likely rests on the new information disclosed in the Registrar’s reports on the Forms 34A and Forms 34B and the IEBC ICT review in the Supreme Court litigation.  Other things were going on within the process than described.

Kenya’s Presidential Election in a nutshell:  1) widespread failure or non-use of purchased electonic Results Transmission System (as in 2007 and 2013); 2) lack of transparent or complete “complementary” substitute (as in 2007 and 2013)

Posted on by
Reply

The voting and counting, as I have previously noted, is the same this year as in the past.  The voter register remained messy again with likely more than one million dead voters and plenty of ineligibles, and was not fixed and locked down as required.  From outside appearances so far, however, the EVID system seems to have substantially worked this time which may have been a big improvement from 2007 and 2013 in limiting in person voting by ineligibles.

The RTS system which was to transmit from a unique registered and logged-in KIEMS device for each of the polling stations a scanned image of the finalized executed Form 34A simultaneously to the various tally centres, either was substantially misused or failed to work as advertised and/or some combination of the two.  The Jubilee majority in Parliament early this year, coincident with the turnover from the Hassan-chaired IEBC to the Chebukati-chaired IEBC passed over opposition objection the option of allowing a complementary substitute for the electronic system.  As far as I can tell the IEBC did not actually plan and establish such an alternative system, nor certainly did they effectuate it in any comprehensive, demonstrable, traceable way.

Nevertheless, rather than take the seven days alloted by law, Chebukati announced alleged final Presidential results roughly 72 hours after poll closing.

Is this “close enough for horseshoes and Kenyans” or is more required to successfully conduct and conclude a presidential election in Kenya in 2017?

Update: my email to a friend regarding the Court-ordered review of IEBC presidential election data:

I haven’t finished reviewing the Registrars report in detail, but it seems clear to me that the IEBC declined to provide, as directly ordered by the Court, the evidence that would verify or falsify alleged transmittal of scanned Forms 34A by KIEMS sets from Polling Stations to Tally Centres (Constituency, Cty, Nat’l).

Whatever the Court decides to do about the on the ruling petition as a whole, allowing the IEBC to flex its muscle over the Supreme Court openly in this way would probably pretty well tell us where things are headed on rule of law issues over the foreseeable future and whether there will be a serious challenge to Ruto in 2022-32.

See “Audit Report on IEBC Servers: login trails, Forms 34A and B not provided” in The Star.

IEBC having admitted in Supreme Court that Results Transmission System did not work as advertised, March 2017 contract for KIEMS acquisition should be tabled

Posted on by
1

This is very basic stuff.  Surely one of the minimum steps required for transparency in the administration of Kenya’s election.

And who in good faith can be against that?

I will have more to say about Kenya’s 2017 election eventually, after I finally get the public records I am due from USAID from my 2015 request regarding our assistance in the administration of the 2013 election. 

[To be direct I have heard contradictory things–all hearsay–about what role the U.S. did or did not play in the KIEMS acquisition.  I just do not know.  Likewise the role of other donors.]

“Preliminary Findings” released by Kenyan civil society coalition on election

Posted on by
Reply

Update 23 Aug – Here is the latest from the  Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu monitoring:    KYSYElectionDataUpdate-WhyDisputed-22Aug2017

Following the unlawful raid on AfriCOG in Nairobi yesterday, today the Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu election monitoring program which has been engaged since long before any of the International Election Observation Missions were constituted, released its Preliminary Findings.

Please read for yourself (especially if you have commented publicly so far on Kenya’s election).

Kenyan election – amid uncertainty, unfortunate there was no Kalonzo v. Ruto debate [updated 7 Aug]

Posted on by
Reply

Today [Sunday 6 Aug.] the IEBC announced for the first time that over 25% of its more than 40,000 polling stations do not have network coverage.  Satellite phones have only been provided, apparently, to the 290 constituency tally centres.

So with a very messy voter register again–see AfriCOG report here–the election is entirely dependent on the KIEMS system.   The procurement of the system remains deliberately shrouded, the techical director murdered–with offers of assistance from the FBI and Scotland Yard spurned.  And now the connectivity bombshell.

Along with the deployment by the Kenyatta administration of twice the security personnell as Kibaki deployed in 2013 in the wake of 2007.

So no need to pretend that this is a normal election in which voters could have standard expectations.  Still, the contrast between the coalitions and the generational consequences at issue might have been best captured by a debate between Kalonzo and Ruto.

Update Monday 7 Aug: seemingly keen to signal that there has been no end to the use of the assets of the Government of Kenya for the Uhuruto re-election campaign, the official website of the Office of the Presidency today features this piece dated Saturday to  correspond with the end of the campaign:  “President Kenyatta: I served Kenya diligently–vote for me again“.  Last year Kenyatta and Ruto launched the Jubilee Party as their re-election vehicle at State House in a telling contrast from Kibaki’s 2007 launch of his PNU re-election vehicle at his private Silver Spring Hotel in Nairobi.

The unwillingness or inability of Kenya’s other institutions, including the media, to stand up to the “re-KANUization” of the State by the Executive’s Party is one of the most troubling indicators of the deteriorization of democratic health from the seeming breakthough of the 2003-05 with the NARC coalition defeat of KANU.

Update: here is a VOA overview.

Very bad news regarding Kenya’s election preparation on multiple fronts (updated)

Posted on by
Reply

Kenya’s IEBC Chairman announced over the weekend that one member of the IEBC technical staff had “gone missing”.  Reports indicated last contacts of 10pm Friday or 3:00am Saturday.  Today we learn that his dismembered body is in the morgue–I have not seen information yet on when he was murdered, when or by whom he was brought to morgue, etc.  (So far these details appear standard for a Nairobi politically related murder.  Normally the cases are unsolved and are subject to features years down the road in the major Kenyan dailies with important details after key suspects have died.)

The extrodinarily last minute testing of the KIEMS (“Kenya Integrated Election Management System”)  — crucial for a credible election because we know that the register has lots of dead voters and other problems –set for 3pm today has been cancelled/postponed due to the fact that the murdered staffer was leading this part of the election.

Meanwhile, the IEBC has announced that more than 20 million paper ballots from its highly controversial sole source contract are arriving.  This allows enough for each of the perhaps 5% dead voters on the register to vote, plus more than an additional 1 million extra ballots.  

Leaked documents publicized by the opposition confirm what seems to be otherwise clear from other official sources — that the KDF is being deployed by the Goverment (the same Secretaries and Ministries involved in the re-election campaign of their Commander-in-Chief per their public communications) for purposes of election security along with the civilian paramilitaries of the Kenya Police Service that were exposed to have been implicated in partisan election activity and in the Post Election Violence in 2007-08.

Parliament has not approved the integration of the KDF into domestic election security.  

We know from the Jubilee (ruling) Party vote to force the IEBC to accept a “manual backup” (substitute) in the event of a failure of the KIEMS that the government would have the votes to have authorized the KDF role had it elected to.  And speaking of that insistence on manual back up . . .

Frankly this stinks.

(UPDATE: Additional details reported by the Standard midday indicate body of Chris Msando in forest by local citizens Sunday evening; they called police Kenya Police Service whose officers took the body to morgue. This is contradictory to some other reports, as usual in cases of murder involving high politics in Kenya. US and UK have offered assistance to investigate what is apparently a clear case of torture and murder.)

(2nd Update: Chris Msando has been variously referred to as “Manager” and as “Acting Director” for the IEBC ICT. The previous ICT director was fired some weeks ago under a cloud. So the person being called a “staff member” in early reports is as a practical matter the most important member of the Commission’s staff other than the chief, Chiloba, who is a holdover from the old Issak Hassan commission.)

(3rd Update: “Uproar over Moses Kuria’s post on slain IEBC officer” has more details and part of the state of play in the campaign pending further information.  

The “simulation” of the KIEMS is re-scheduled now for Wednesday afternoon.)