Police disperse rowdy supporters at Kianyaga tallying centre

Police in Gichugu used teargas to disperse supporters of Kirinyaga Woman Representative Wangui Ngirici, who had stormed the constituency tallying centre at Kianyaga Boys High School.

The rowdy supporters claimed some stuffed ballot boxes had been sneaked in to rig the elections on Wednesday night.

Kirinyaga County Commander Mathew Mang'ira ordered the two "alleged boxes" be put aside together with the presiding officer who had brought them in to allow tallying to continue.

Mang'ira said the besieged IEBC official explained that the boxes were not from outside instead it was one of their personnel who had jumped the queue for being too exhausted.

"We asked the informer who had the information for their side of the story and this was well explained and all the agents agreed that there was nothing fishy and that ended the matter," Mang'ira said.

Ms Ngirici's supporters then tried to storm the tallying centre and security officers had to use teargas to calm the situation.

No one was hurt in the incident and counting continued smoothly. Ngirichi blamed the incident on her opponents.

In Nyeri, the county tallying centre was closed for Wednesday night at 9pm after a long wait for results from the constituencies.

County Returning Officer Stacy Mutua said they had no projections to receive any results during the night and no electoral materials were under her custody at the time.

"It would have been senseless for me to keep the officials on standby when all my constituency officers had no projection to complete tallying during the time," said Ms Mutua.

Announcing the closure, Mutua said they would resume operations yesterday at 9am. The official said they were confident they would accomplish the task within the stipulated timeline.

Tallying at the nearby constituency tallying centre for Nyeri town, however, continued throughout the night but with fatigued staff working on half shift.

Constituency returning officer Francis Mauta said they had down-scaled the tallying through shifts to allow fatigued staff rest and recharge.

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