President Uhuru Kenyatta's political bedrocks leads in voter registration, the IEBC reported yesterday, as Raila Odinga protested against what he called massive rigging fraud by the National Intelligence Service.
Meanwhile, in a startling admission of a flawed register, the IEBC acknowledged 128,926 Kenyans share ID or passport numbers in its database. Cord termed the revelation “catastrophic and untenable”. It said the problem is massive, potentially affecting as many as 2.5 million Kenyans.
This could be a Pandora's Box.
Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka yesterday rejected the opposition leader's assertions about NIS mischief.
"These unsubstantiated claims are outrightly malicious and intended to undermine the voter registration process while at the same time maligning public institutions," he said in a statement.
IEBC statistics released yesterday indicate Central Kenya and the Rift Valley have taken an early lead in the percentage of newly registered voters in the first week of the month-long drive. It ends on February 14.
If this advantage and momentum are sustained, Uhuru, who is under siege from a united opposition, could again achieve the "tyranny of numbers".
In total 825,145 voters registered countrywide in the first week, against the IEBC's first-week target of 1.4 million.
According to new IEBC statistics, Central Kenya (Nyandarua, Nyeri, Kiambu, Kirinyaga and Muranga counties) have registered a record 139,876 voters in the first seven days, 87 per cent of the IEBC target.
Rift Valley, considered DP William Ruto's bastion, registered 169,371 since the drive began on Monday last week.
Despite vigorous campaigns by Raila and co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang'ula, it appears their political turfs have been stricken by voter apathy.
Raila's political citadel of Nyanza (Kisumu, Homa Bay, Siaya, Migori, Kisii and Nyamira counties) only registered 95,995 voters in the first week. This translates to 48 per cent only.
In Western, only 75,183 people have been enlisted as voters, translating into 43 per cent of the first week's target.
Raila, Mudavadi and Wetang'ula — all championing a united opposition — have a strong following in Western Kenya.
In Kalonzo's backyard of Eastern, 127,580 voters have been registered, 57 per cent of the goal.
However, the Eastern figure includes some perceived Jubilee strongholds, such as Tharaka Nithi and Meru that have registered 1,482 and 5,323 voters, respectively.
Coast, also considered Raila's turf, registered 95,681 voters, 58 per cent of the week's targeted total.
Nairobi and Northeastern regions — considered Jubilee and Cord battlegrounds — registered 95,966 voters and 24,006 voters, respectively.
The Nairobi turnout is estimated to be 48 per cent, while Northeastern recorded an impressive performance of 92 per cent of the target.
The revelations could be a statistical shocker for Raila and his handlers who have been on a charm offensive to neutralise the tyranny of numbers that propelled Jubilee to power in 2013.
Yesterday, Raila said the opposition has credible information the NIS is interfering heavily in voter registration to skew results of the August 8 polls.
In a statement to newsrooms, the ODM leader said the NIS and its new Director General Philip Wachira Kameru were once again setting the stage for rigging, as he said as it did in 2007 and 2013. Raila says both elections were stolen.
“The NIS is also interfering with voter registration by having youths, whose data were collected through the dubious National Youth Service exercise over the last few years, and registering them as voters, without their knowledge,” Raila said.
He said it was using BVR kits to register Ugandans and Ethiopians, a statement the IEBC denied.
This NIS-driven process, Raila said, is responsible for multiple registrations, shared identity cards and many cases of people who are captured as being registered, though they have never signed up to vote.
The ODM chief said Kenyans will never accept “another NIS-led electoral theft”.
“NIS will break down this nation and send it to the dogs, if it continues on this path of seeking to influence election results by way of fraud... It [NIS] must do this with the full awareness there will be no country if it does not abandon the course it is currently pursuing,” he said.
According to the Cord leader, in 2013 the NIS embedded its officers into the IEBC ranks as polling clerks and in other strategic positions to help Jubilee attain a “dubious victory”.
In 2007, Raila said, NIS was heavily involved in ballot-stuffing and other irregularities to help the PNU win.
Electoral boss Chebukati said, however, he is not aware of any NIS rigging.
“We have not received any information of foreigners registering in Kenya to vote. In fact, I am hearing it from you,” Chebukati told journalists.
“The government is there, security officers are there, there is the Immigration department, and if it's going on [registration of foreigners], as a commission we are saying it is illegal.”
"It is worth noting the commission has the obligation to register only eligible Kenyans who present themselves with original national ID cards or valid passports. Any person with information regarding illegal issuance of ID cards to non-citizens must proceed to report such cases to the relevant authorities," IEBC said in a statement by Communications manager Andrew Limo.
Chebukati downplayed the impact of 128,926 double registrations, saying they represent only 0.8 per cent of the total number of voters in the database.
The IEBC is working closely with the National Registration Bureau to clean up all the shared IDs, he said. Registration officers and ICT experts are doing a further clean-up, Chebukati said. The IEBC will make available to the public the provisional register for verification, he promised.
Last week Kalonzo and Raila each discovered their ID numbers had been used to register other Kenyans, terming it rigging.
Yesterday, Cord also claimed a woman named Anyango Ambayo has been registered using Raila's ID number in Mtwapa, Kilifi county.
