IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati has postponed polls over security concerns

IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati.

The Independence Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati has postponed repeat presidential polls in Homa Bay, Kisumu, Migori and Siaya counties to October 28 over security concerns.

In Nyanza, Senior IEBC officials were stuck with ballot boxes and papers in their offices the whole day as they could not get transport  to distribute them to polling stations.

Returning Officers like Clement Osiemo of Kasipul constituency and his deputy Maureen Akoth said all the presiding officers and clerks had not  reported on duty.

Key polling stations in Kisumu Central and East constituencies, known for high voter turnout remained ghostly, with only a few dogs, chicken and street urchins hanging around. 

Opposition supporters used their padlocks to lock doors to classrooms and social halls where  elections were  to take place. In other places like Rarieda, Homa  Bay and Migori, boulders, thorns, and mounds of  soil were used  to block access to polling stations.

By afternoon, a number of constituencies were yet to dispatch election materials to the various polling stations with almost all officials who had been trained to oversee the exercise failing to turn up.

Rowdy youth continued to hang around polling stations in an attempt to block ferrying of electoral materials and start off the exercise with the few officials present expressing fears for their lives.