Possible avenues where aspirants used to rig party primaries in Kenya

It is clear that party primaries all over the country have been the centre of controversy as several aspirants sighted irregularities with the whole process. This led to nullification of some results, while chaos disrupted the voting and tallying process in some counties.

Many political pundits have already started hinting on a possible replication of the same during the General Elections in August, as most aspirants relishing top positions have shown that they are ready to do whatever it takes for them to clinch a parliamentary seat.

Examining the source of all misunderstandings during party primaries is important because it enables us to know what went wrong, the loopholes and possible solutions in the case the process happens again. This examination process therefore should be able to pin point the possible avenues where rigging was prominent and shut it down completely.

Kisumu County is one of many counties that exhibited chaos and demonstrations because of party primary irregularities. Leaders seemed bent on pushing their way to get tickets, using all means necessary to be declared winners.

According to a reporter who was stationed in Kisumu County during the primaries, two assistants of a Returning officer disappeared from their stations never to be seen again, as they feared for their lives. This would mean that there was so much pressure put on Returning officers by the different candidates, possibly wanting to be announced as winners amidst the controversies.

To prevent the intervention of politicians in the voting and tallying process, officials decided on a secret tallying centre, where no politician would intervene. This information about the secret tallying centre’s whereabouts was even hidden form the media, as reporters and correspondents only got the information when the officials wanted them to.

This could mean many things in terms of how credible these party primaries were. How do we know that while transporting filled ballot papers to the ‘secret tallying centres’ , none was added or removed from the ballot boxes? How do we know that no politician was capable of knowing where this secret centre was and actually heavily influencing the outcome?

If the officials were honest enough, then Kenyans can trust that ballot papers were not interfered with. However, this could have also been the case in other counties as aspirants may have known the location of the secret tallying centres thanks to informants and actually went there to wait for the ballot papers to come.

This could have been the avenue where ballot papers or boxes were altered with in the ongoing party primaries. We hope that whoever won in their respective counties won fairly and will give their all in serving the country to the best of their ability.