A Kenyan electoral officer resigned on Wednesday, a week ahead of a disputed repeat of the presidential election, saying the poll would not be credible because the electoral commission was “under siege.”
“The commission in its current state can surely not guarantee a credible election on 26 October 2017. I do not want to be party to such a mockery to electoral integrity,” Roselyn Akombe said in a statement issued from New York, after fleeing the East African nation.
“The Commission has become a party to the current crisis” with commissioners “ready to vote along partisan lines and not to discuss the merit of issues before them,” Akombe added.
Staff had been receiving last-minute instructions to change technology and electronic transmission of results, intimidated by political stakeholders and fearing for their lives, according to Akombe.
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Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta meanwhile insisted during an address on national television that the August 8 elections had been “free, fair and transparent.”
It was all political parties duty to “fulfill our constitutional mandate” and participate in the repeat polls, Kenyatta said.
A repeat poll was announced after the Supreme Court nullified the result of the August 8 election after opposition leader Raila Odinga lodged a complaint, claiming that the computers of the electoral commission had been hacked to generate a victory for Kenyatta.
Odinga demanded electoral reform, including the removal of top managers of the electoral commission and a change of suppliers of polling materials and technology.
Initial results from the August poll would have given incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta a second term with 54 per cent of the vote, followed by Odinga with 44.7 per cent.
