The National Super Alliance has vowed to press on with its radical vote protection plan, despite reservations by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati has opposed NASA’s plan to deploy five agents to each poling station, a strategy that is central to opposition chief Raila Odinga’s hi-tech parallel tallying system.
According to the IEBC boss, each candidate participating in the August 8 election, including presidential candidates, will be allowed one agent only.
“Five people are not allowed in the polling stations,” Chebukati told journalists on Wednesday evening. “Only one agent for each candidate. That is the arrangement that is there on polling day,”
The hard stance by the IEBC is likely to trigger bad blood between the opposition and the electoral agency.
An angry NASA Chief Executive Officer Norman Magaya insisted they will not back down and accused the Commission of “functioning on hysteria”.
Section 30 of the Election Act states that a political party may appoint one agent for its candidates at each polling station. NASA has five affiliate parties.
Magaya told the Star that they had met Chebukati and explained their strategy, saying only two agents will be in the polling station.
“The rest will simply be helping in voter turnout outside the polling station ... And their [IEBC] outright calls to reject go ahead to manifest a commission that is averse to accountability mechanisms,” Magaya shot back.
“We are not naive on the requirements of the Elections Act as far as agents are concerned. We need not be lectured by the commission on what to do. We know.”
The police have separately written to IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba to clarify how the polling stations will be manned to avoid controversy and confusion on August 8.
Assistant Inspector General of Police Henry Barmao asked Chiloba to communicate the commission’s decision, so police would not be seen as partisan if they lock out “unwanted guests”.
“It’s even our suspicion that it is the commission that has clandestinely asked the police to write to them, which makes a connivance of wanting to compromise the integrity of the electoral process,” Magaya said.
NASA believes the strong opposition to its vote protection plan is to create yet another leeway for Jubilee to rig the polls.
On Tuesday, Raila accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of engaging the military chiefs and the NIS to manipulate the results.
The hi-tech parallel tallying system will allow NASA to know the results of the presidential vote eight hours after polling stations close at 6pm.