Raila, Ruto to deploy technology to protect votes amid rigging claims

Kenya Kwanza and Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalitions have revealed plans to deploy technology to protect their votes amid claims by both sides of a plot to manipulate the August 9 polls outcome.

Officials in Deputy President William Ruto and Raila Odinga’s camps are in the process of putting up parallel tallying centres. At the same time, recruitment and subsequent training and deployment of poll agents are currently being undertaken by the two camps.

The recruitment of the agents has, however, been hit by suspicion over claims by both sides of a plot by their opponent to infiltrate the process by having their sympathisers enrolled by the opposing side.

Consequently, Azimio has set up a team sitting in one of its offices in Nairobi’s Karen to go through the profiles of the individuals they plan to hire. ODM chairman John Mbadi disclosed that the coalition has resorted to have a pool of agents to pick from and will only decide on whom to deploy to the 46,233 polling centres very close to election day.

Credibility of polls

The plans come in the wake of accusations and counter-accusations of plots to interfere with the credibility of the polls.

Despite putting on a brave face that it will not be possible to manipulate the election, Dr Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza has accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of trying to use state machinery to influence the outcome.

The alliance on Friday said the state was planning to put up a sophisticated backroom technology system to access the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) result transmission system with an aim of tampering with the outcome.

On the other side, Mr Odinga’s side has accused the IEBC of flirting with their main competitors after it linked Senator Moses Wetang’ula to Inform Lykos (Hellas) SA Holdings, a Greece firm contracted to print ballots.

Parallel tallying centres

Both sides Saturday remained cagey about the location of their parallel tallying centres. Azimio is said to have multiple offices in Karen and plans to use them to run parallel tallying, while Kenya Kwanza recently unveiled a new command centre at Soin Shopping Arcade in Nairobi’s Westlands, on top of its Hustler Plaza on Ngong’ Road.

“This is a competitive information (location of parallel tallying centre) and you know our brothers (Kenya Kwanza) are big saboteurs known for copy-pasting, so we cannot reveal the location,” said Head of Mr Odinga’s of campaign and Laikipia Governor Ndiritu Muriithi.

“We have a whole elaborate structure in place. We are fully prepared in terms of management on election day and I want to assure Kenyans that we are 100 per cent prepared. Recruitment and training of agents is all complete. We are confident of a landslide win.”

Agents in all polling stations

Azimio campaigns chief executive Elizabeth Meyo said the coalition party will have agents in all the polling stations. She, however, declined to share details of the recruitment exercise, terming the number and hiring modalities “internal matters that we will not share with the press”.

“We do not necessarily have to run our election-day operations from one place. The ‘where’ is, therefore, not a question we need to answer now. We will cross the bridge of tallying centres when we get there. Suffice it to say that our operational and logistical needs will evolve based on the needs of the moment,” she told Sunday Nation.

No taking chances

United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Secretary-General Veronica Maina said Kenya Kwanza was not taking any chances in its strategy to protect its votes.

“We are on top gear in recruiting and rolling out training for our poll agents. We will have them at every level from national to the polling station level. We also expect our key people to be at the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya and our offices and feeder locations across the country,” she said.

Ms Maina hinted that the alliance would likely use its Hustler Plaza to receive results from its agents countrywide. “The Soin Arcade is running basic campaign activities for our presidential candidate. Much of our activities are taking place at the Hustler Plaza. There is a lot of weight lifting at the Hustler Centre,” she added.

Machakos governor Alfred Mutua, a Kenya Kwanza principal, said they have several technical teams to handle electoral activities on election day. He said a team has been set up to coordinate poll agents on the ground and the campaigns for the last remaining days in all the 47 counties. “Each county has a team handling its matters in terms of logistics and identification of poll agents. You need to be well-organised to win an election,” said Dr Mutua.

“Every political party will have parallel tallying centres. We will have tallying centres and even our opponents will have one. It is normal.”

Results transmission forms

Murang’a senator Irungu Kanga’ata told the Nation that their agents will be trained in how to relay results transmission forms in real time. He disclosed that they will deploy the latest technology to be used by the agents to transmit results from every corner of the country.

Latest technology

“We are in the process of establishing a parallel tabulation centre with latest technology and competence. We intend to collect every form 34A (from polling station) in real time,” said Mr Kang’ata.

Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa said they have cobbled together top brains in the information technology (IT) sector to handle their parallel tallying. “We will have all the necessary technical teams and we want to tell our opponents that ICT is never the preserve of anybody in this country,” said Mr Barasa.

The two camps have each tapped two leading IT gurus to help them ascend to the House on the Hill. Mr Davies Chirchir, the chief Jubilee Party agent in the 2017 election, who also represented President Uhuru Kenyatta at the national tallying centre, is leading the DP’s wing, while team Azimio’s ICT chief is Mr George Njoroge, the East African Data Handlers chief executive officer and managing director.

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