Three years later, results from the August 2017 general elections in Kenya seem to be the source of a major controversy, as irregularities in a detailed result document uploaded by the country’s Independent Election and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on its website showed errors that have raised suspicion on the credibility of the polls.
The commission had uploaded the election results data on their website on Saturday for Kenyans to freely access. In a statement signed by IEBC Chairman, Wafula Chebukati, the commission explained that the move was in conformity with the Constitution, which obligates the State to make this information public.
“Pursuant to Article 35 that grants citizens the information held by the State as well as obligating the publication and the publicity of such information, the Commission presents the results of the 2017 General Election and Fresh Presidential Election,” the statement read.
Temporary Post
However, hours later, the commission pulled down the data from its official site after questions were raised based on notable errors despite the commission taking three years to compile data from the elections. Responding to the error in a tweet, the commission said: “The commission has recalled the 2017 General Election data that was uploaded on the IEBC website after a few typographic errors occasioned by massive data were noted. The corrected document will be re-uploaded and shared in due course. Inconvenience caused is highly regrettable.”
Noteworthy Mistakes
While data showed registered voters in 2017 were 19, 611, 433 up from 14, 388, 781 voters in 2013, and voter turnout out dropped to 78 per cent down from a record 86 per cent voter turnout in 2013. The commission came under fire for avoidable mistakes including the wrongful listing of Members of Parliament for various constituencies and the political parties they represented at the polls.
This includes data that showed that Ken Okoth of Kibra and Millie Odhiambo of Suba North, had lost their election bid to Judah Martin and Noah Onyango, respectively. The report also indicated that Ms Odhiambo ran on an Amani National Congress (ANC) party ticket instead of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party in Kenya, among several other erroneous data.
Several political stakeholders have questioned the commission’s efficiency after it failed to transmit concise data after three years of compilation. Restructuring and re-organisation have been called for ahead of the 2022 general elections in Kenya.
