The ballot papers arrive as Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Wafula Chebukati ducked critical questions raised by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
DCI boss George Kinoti on Sunday put Chebukati on the spot over his "casual" handling of the elections, following the arrest of three foreigners with election materials.
Kinoti fell just short of placing Chebukati at the centre of an alleged plot to rig the presidential election.
The Star has established that the papers will land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from Athens, Greece, where they and other ballots are being printed.
“The first batch of the presidential ballot papers will start arriving at 11am tomorrow [Wednesday]," IEBC chief executive officer Hussein Marjan confirmed to the Star.
The ballot papers are being printed by a Greek firm, Inform P Lykos.
The final batch of the papers is expected in the country on July 30, nine days before voters go to polling stations to pick President Uhuru Kenyatta's successor.
The IEBC has said there will be no excess ballot papers that will be printed for the presidential election to avoid any foul play, including ballot-stuffing.
The IEBC said only 22,120,458 ballot papers will be shipped into the country, being the exact number of the country's registered voters.
A team of 14 people who flew to Athens to witness the printing are expected to accompany the papers back to Kenya.
They include religious leaders and representatives of presidential candidates.
Leading presidential candidates Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto, civil society representatives, the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, the Political Parties Liaison Committee and the Media Council of Kenya travelled to Greece.
Also in that delegation are two commissioners, vice chairperson Julianna Cherera and Francis Wanderi, as well as some secretariat staff.
The team's task included confirming all the ballot papers have been printed, palleted and packaged as required in readiness for shipment to Nairobi.
Preparations for next month's general election have been overshadowed by the dramatic interception of election stickers at JKIA.
Police arrested three Venezuelans — Joel Gustavo, Camargo Castellanos Jose Gregorio and Salvador Javier Suarez — over possession of election-related materials, in violation of security protocols.
However, Chebukati protested against the arrest of the three whom he termed employees of Smartmatic, the company that is supplying the IEBC with election technology.
Despite being put on the spot, Chebukati on Monday ignored critical concerns raised by Kinoti. They include why a Venezuelan IT specialist was not received by any of the IEBC officials at JKIA.
The foreigner was carrying sensitive and strategic election materials.
Instead, Chebukati said the three were legally in the country to carry out their mandate as support staff for a local firm working with Smartmatic in the deployment of election technology.
The IEBC chairman also said the controversial stickers are “not strategic election materials”, as claimed by Kinoti.
“It is important to note that the stickers are non-strategic election materials. The stickers were printed based on the details of the Gazette Notice published on July 1, 2022,” Chebukati said.
The chairman said Smartmatic was required to provide stickers for labelling the 55,100 Kenya Integrated Election Management System devices, or Kiems kits.
However, Chebukati did not address concerns why the stickers, which would be used in the labelling and tracking of the crucial kits, were shipped in casually as personal luggage.
By Chebukati's own admission in his letter on Monday night, the stickers contain information on wards, constituencies, counties and unique bar codes for 46,229 polling stations.
“The deployment of the Kiems kits is currently underway. The stickers were for the purposes of packaging and dispatch to all polling stations,” Chebukati said.
While Chebukati did not provide details of how the commission would ensure the stickers do not get into the wrong hands to aid in electoral fraud, he insisted the commission is open.
For instance, Chebukati highlighted the meetings that the commission has had with presidential candidates and the tours their agents and technical teams have made of the IEBC warehouse.
“In the spirit of openness, the commission has continuously facilitated presidential candidates, and their agents, to inspect the preparation of the Kiems kits in Nairobi...this collaboration is still ongoing,” Chebukati said.
He went on, “Each kit is being loaded with Electronic Voter Identification and Results Transmission System software, SIM cards as well as SD [secure digital] cards containing registered voters’ biographic and biometric data for each polling station.”
The IEBC boss, however, skirted issues related to claims the Venezuelans have links to a section of the political class that may be used to rig the forthcoming elections.
Chebukati did not explain the whereabouts of 17 rolls of stickers, which were first delivered by the two Venezuelans who arrived into the country earlier, and the total number procured. He also skirted questions on what was happening to the blank stickers that were seized.
In a lengthy letter, Kinoti had questioned how Camargo was invited into the country by an individual identified as Abdullahi Mohammed, and not the electoral commission which is the procuring entity.
Abdullahi has been identified as a former ICT employee of the IEBC who left the commission in 2018 to start his own business. He has been linked to a company that is said to be the local agent of Smartmatic.
The DCI also raised concerns why the Venezuelan held with the labelling stickers did not have any letter or documentation indicating that he had been invited by the IEBC.
In the absence of the letter, Kinoti had argued that the materials were assumed to belong to Abdullahi and not the IEBC.
The police have also questioned why Abdullahi only picked Venezuelans living in Panama, two of whom, they argued, passed airport checks carrying the controversial stickers.
But the police doubt whether the three were employees of Smartmatic International as there were yet to be found any records indicating they were part of the firm.
“As par the contract dated November 25, 2021 between the IEBC and Smartmatic, the three suspects are not expressly indicated as employees of IEBC or Smartmatic International BV,” Kinoti said.
Chebukati said the commission holds regular meetings with the contractor to review the project status in line with the commission’s operation plan but did not answer why the foreigners were to report to Abdullahi's office and not the IEBC.
He moved to assure Kenyans that the polls agency “remains committed to delivering a free, fair and credible 2022 general election that meets the democratic aspirations of the people of Kenya.”
Chebukati defended the choice of Smartmatic as the technology supplier, saying it emerged the most qualified in the technical and financial scores among the five bidders who had expressed interest in the tender.
(Edited by V. Graham)
“WATCH: The latest videos from the Star”
