Last batch of ballot papers arrives Tuesday

The last consignment of ballot papers is scheduled to arrive in Nairobi at 10am Tuesday, marking the last stage of the preparations for the Thursday repeat presidential election.

The papers and other materials — including result forms, voter registers and posters — were printed by Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing in Dubai.

Last week, a delegation from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), representatives of political parties, journalists and religious leaders oversaw the last stages of printing and the packaging of the materials.

CANDIDATES
The printing was overseen by senior IEBC staff, with an employee of the Kenya Bureau of Standards at hand to guide the development of the papers.

Prof Abdi Yakub Guliye, a member of the IEBC, said the printing took place very close to the election because the commission had to wait for the conclusion of a case filed by Thirdway Alliance leader Ekuru Aukot in which he sought to be included on the ballot paper.

The commission also included Mr Cyrus Jirongo on the paper, although a court had declared him bankrupt; an order that has been lifted temporarily.

He had appealed against the court’s decision.

ORDER

The commission reasoned that it was better to have his name on the ballot paper than to be forced to include it in a rush.

“The preparations are such that a constituency’s ballot papers are arranged properly. Within the constituency, the ballot paper packs are arranged per polling station,” Prof Guliye said.

In total, there are 291 pallets for the 290 constituencies and the diaspora.

Al Ghurair general manager Lakshmanan Ganapathy last week said the pallets were split into two packages, the first labelled A and the second B, for constituencies where the number of voters is large.

This is meant to enable easier handling.

EXPERIENCE
On Saturday, as the delegation made its last visit, the last batch of pallets was ready for collection and delivery to the airport, from where cargo planes operated by Etihad Airlines would take them to Nairobi.

Mr Ganapathy told journalists that the firm had produced and delivered election materials for Iraq (three times), Afghanistan (twice), Libya (twice), the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Zambia, Uganda and Haiti.

The papers to be used on Thursday have a range of features that Mr Ganapathy said would be difficult to produce without the type of security printing they do.

SECURITY

In many ways, the ballot papers are like currency.

The features are: a logo and serial number that can only be seen under ultraviolet light, micro text, tapered serialisation and watermark.

They also have anti-copy features (the word ‘copy’ appears when a copy of the paper is made); embossment; and intricate designs on the border, known in printing parlance as Guilloche patterns.