Home
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) invited various election observers to observe and monitor the August 9th general elections. We summarized the reports of various election observers and these were their executive summaries.
East African Community led by former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete
- Campaigns were conducted in a peaceful manner.
- They recommended faith-based organizations, NGOs, and civil society organizations (CSOs) for making contributions such as civic education.
- IEBC was transparent.
- There was a lot of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech being spread on social media.
- IEBC involved young people and young women in the electoral process.
- Political parties need to involve more young people in leadership positions and allow them to vie for elective posts.
- Party agents were placed too far from the polling agents when the tallying was happening. This could give room for malpractice.
- There was a failure with some Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System (KIEMS) kits but the use of technology was successful.
African Union and Common Markets for Eastern and Southern Africa (AU and COMESA)
- The environment was generally peaceful.
- IEBC was deliberate with its stakeholder engagement.
- There was late disbursement of funds to the IEBC by the National Treasury which caused hitches.
- The youth voter turnout was lower than in previous elections. Only 39.84% (8,812,790) voted which is a decline of 5.17% compared to the 2017 turnout.
- Campaign messages centred around socio-economic issues as opposed to ethnic inflammatory messages like in previous years.
- There was freedom of the press.
- Civil society organizations deployed observers and monitors throughout the electoral process.
Human Rights agenda (HURIA)
HURIA concentrated their efforts at the coastal counties of Kilifi, Kwale and Mombasa. They deployed 33 monitors and 80 observers.
- At the coast, there was no voter apathy.
- Special interest groups such as women, persons with disability (PWDs) and the youth showed up to vote.
- At the grassroots level, IEBC was poorly prepared. As late as election day, some polling clerks didn’t know which centres to go to.
- Police were moderate in executing their mandate.
- Some IEBC officials were bribed but those were moderate anomalies.
European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM)
Led by Ivan Stefanec, the EU EOM had 13 analysts in Nairobi, 50 long-term observers in 39 counties, one social media analyst and 200 observers in polling stations.
- The fundamental freedoms such as the right to association and others were both exercised and respected.
- There were many court cases that came late such as the printing of ballots which impacted the smooth running of elections on election day.
- Candidate registration was done fairly late.
- Technology enabled the process rather than hinder it.
- The police were properly trained.
- Kenyans are involved and engaged in the election process, unlike citizens in other parts of the world.
- Electoral dispute resolution functioned quickly and efficiently.
- There was some bias in the media and coordinated inauthentic behaviour in various online platforms.
- The lack of a proper campaign financing framework disadvantaged those who didn’t have access to finances, especially women.
Elections Observations Group (ELOG) Kenya
ELOG is a coalition of civil society, faith-based organizations & other key stakeholders. They had one long-term observer in each of the 290 constituencies, 40 media monitors and 46 electoral violence monitors. Additionally, they deployed 5000 observers in all 47 counties.
- The final audited voters’ list was not made available to the public or civil society.
- The full audit by KPMG was not made public to civil society or the public.
- There was low voter turnout.
- Lack of enforcement of Chapter 6 of the Constitution allowed candidates with integrity issues to vie for elective posts.
- PWDs, pregnant women, sick nursing mothers and the elderly were given priority to vote in 99.4% of polling stations.
- KIEMS kits failed in 6.3% of polling stations as opposed to 7.6% in 2017.
- 6% of polling stations had KIEMS kits compared to 99.3% in 2017.
- Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance party agents were present in 92.3% of polling stations and signed the declaration of results.
- United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party agents were in 92.0% of polling stations and signed declaration of results.
- Other party agents were in 68.3% of polling stations and signed declaration of results.
- Form 34As were publicly affixed outside of polling stations in 94.8% of polling stations compared to 86.5% in 2017.
