Kenya registers to vote

2012-12-11 15:13 [source]

To decrease fraud during the forthcoming elections in March 2013 in Kenya people need to register. By making pictures and take fingerprints the The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) hopes the chance of fraude is redused.

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Prime Nairobi – Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Tuesday urged Kenyans to register to vote for next year’s presidential ballot, with less than half of eligible voters signed up, while tensions rise over concerns of renewed political violence.

The latest figures from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) show that only 46% of the targeted 18 million Kenyans have enrolled to vote, ahead of a registration deadline on 18 December.

Kenya’s vote on 4 March is plagued by concerns that East Africa’s economic powerhouse will revert to the inter-racial bloodletting that followed balloting in December 2007, claiming more than 1 000 lives.

Odinga, a presidential front-runner, said Kenyans are “failing in a major civic duty and letting our country down” and urged institutions and employers to encourage more participation.

“I want to remind all Kenyans: bad leaders are elected by good citizens who do not vote,” Odinga told reporters in Nairobi. “All struggling, failing and failed nations do so because good citizens refuse to engage a leadership that will take their nation forward.”

Isaak Hassan, IEBC chairman, linked the low registration to concerns stemming from the 2007-08 inter-ethnic clashes.

“We have not recovered completely from the post-election violence,” he told reporters at a press conference. He also described voters as being fearful of registering to vote and cited a lack of registration centres in parts of the country.

Opinion polls

Low rates of voter enrollment are also attributed to political infighting, poor availability of the hi-tech registration kits that Kenya purchased for the ballot, and the difficulty of accessing refugees from the last election’s violence.

Election concerns were heightened last week with the formation of political blocs that split Kenya along ethnic lines. Odinga’s coalition will challenge an alliance of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, who are both accused of orchestrating atrocities during the 2007-08 violence.

The separate trials of Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister, and Ruto, a former education minister, begin at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in early April, just before a potential run-off vote for the presidency.

Kenyatta also urged eligible voters to sign up on Tuesday, posting on his Twitter account: “Get your brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues, uncles and aunts, mothers, fathers and neighbours too to register. Your votes count.”

Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, a Kenya analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, said voter registration was likely to fall below the 18 million target and even the 12.6 million Kenyans who registered to vote in the 2010 constitutional referendum.

“Looking at the opinion polls, we know that this is going to be a very close election,” he told dpa. “Low voter turnout will strike at the credibility of the ballot, and make it easier for politicians from any side to say that the election was not conducted fairly.”

– SAPA

Kibaki launches new voter registration drive

2012-11-19 20:06

Nairobi – Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki Monday launched a new voter registration drive with a stern warning to those he termed as “individuals out to mess up the election”.

“The government will deal with anyone who may wish to disrupt this exercise…wherever you are we shall take action against you…there is no point in anyone trying to mess up this election. You will see what we will do,” Kibaki said at the official opening of the voter registration process.

Kibaki’s warning comes in the wake of several vicious and fatal attacks in different parts of the country.

The violence is not believed to be linked to politics, but it raises concerns over security and a lack of police capacity in volatile areas ahead of elections due in March.

Elections five years ago descended into deadly post-poll killings that shattered Kenya’s image as a beacon of regional stability.

“All security challenges facing the country must be addressed to ensure a free and fair election,” Kenya’s justice minister Eugene Wamalwa said at the event.

“Support must be given to our security forces to help them serve us better,” Wamalwa added.

The voter registration that began Monday is expected to last for one month.

“The exercise is going on everyday, seven days a week including public holidays. We do not have the luxury of time to give even a day’s extension,” Kenya’s elections chief Ahmed Issack Hassan said.

Accuracy and security

The exercise targets to register 18 million new voters within a month. The voter registration had been postponed on several occasions, following a row between the elections body and Kenya’s ministry of finance over the availability of funds to purchase new biometric voter registration (BVR) kits.

Some would be voters argue that the 30-day time limit is too short for the commission to register the voters.

“Of course this system is faster than the manual one of 2007 and before but one month for 18 million people is too much to ask,” Alphonse Ayodi, a Nairobi resident who planned to register for the election told AFP.

The last batch of the 15 000 biometric kits arrived in Nairobi early in November.

It is believed that the kits, whose data base combines a voter’s finger prints and official government documentation, will go a long way in preventing rampant cheating, double registration and multiple voting that was witnessed in the bloody 2007 presidential elections.

“We want to assure Kenyans that the BVR kits guarantee the accuracy and security of the election,” Hassan said.

Kenya is gearing up for a March 4 2013 election that has so far attracted at least 10 presidential candidates, among them two International Criminal Court suspects, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, thought to be front runners.

– AFP