Officer injured as youth disrupt Malindi mock polls
An IEBC official collects some of the materials destroyed during an attack at the Malindi Kisumu Ndogo area. The attackers suspected to be members of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) are said to have posed as voters before attacking security and election officials conducting the mock elections March 24, 2012. MIKE KALAMA
A police officer has been injured after suspected Mombasa Republican Council youth stormed a polling station during mock elections in Malindi, Coast Province Saturday.
One of the four officers manning the polling station at St Andrews Primary School was forced to fire in the air several times to disperse the rowdy youth. The injured officer also lost his firearm.
The elections were cancelled after the mob attacked the officials with crude weapons and vandalised property belonging to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
According to one of the clerks at the station situated in Kisumu Ndogo area, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the group arrived in a car and mingled with others posing as normal voters.
The clerk said that the youth, who had crude weapons, insisted that the elections should be stopped.
“They had rungus (clubs) and immediately they alighted they started wrestling the police and attacked them."
They vandalised several ballot boxes and destroyed many of the ballots that had already been cast.
“The attackers who were about 40 escaped on foot after the police officers shot in the air,” said the clerk.
The IEBC risk and compliance director Abdulrahman Bilacha confirmed the incident and said that security had been beefed up at the rest of the 20 polling stations participating in the exercise.
Mr Bilacha vowed elections would continue until the poling stations close at 6pm.
Malindi and Kajiado North were the two constituencies selected out of the 290 to carry out the mock elections in order to test the six-voting ballot box system.
Most of the voters who turned up said they did not know much about the process and had to consult the poll officers.
Police officers said they had launched a crackdown to apprehend the suspects.
The MRC is agitating for secession and its members have said Coast Province is not part of Kenya.
