Jubilee adopts measures to ensure smooth, credible polls

Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju and National Elections Board Chairman Andrew Musangi during the press conference at party’s headquarters in Nairobi on April 22, 2017. The party has announced a raft of measures to be adopted during its primaries. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • All county tallying centres will gather and announce provisional constituency results.
  • Voting materials are to be distributed directly from the party headquarters to constituency level under tight security.
  • The procedures give each aspirant a chance to have one pre-approved agent per polling station.

Jubilee Party has announced a raft of measures to be adopted during its primaries which begins on Monday in an effort to avoid a repeat of the shambolic exercise witnessed last week.

This comes after a top level meeting involving Deputy President William Ruto and members of the party’s secretariat on Saturday in the wake of violent, chaotic and bungled nominations on Friday that saw voting cancelled in 21 counties across the country.

In a press statement sent to newsrooms on Sunday evening, details of how vote counting and polling will be done are laid bare.

Top on the list is the decision to give only the National Elections Board (NEB) the mandate to declare official results after certifying and validating all provisional results received at the party headquarters.

All county tallying centres will gather and announce provisional constituency results for both MPs and MCA aspirants and county level results for women representatives, senators and governors and transmit them to the national tallying centre to be housed at the Jubilee Party headquarters.

Presiding officers will be required to, upon closure of a polling station, oversee vote counting and announce provisional results where aspirants’ agents will also be required to sign a form to accept the results before they are transmitted to the constituency tallying centre.

On polling procedures, voting materials are to be distributed directly from the party headquarters to constituency level under tight security before constituency returning officers distribute them to polling station presiding officers who will be required to guard the materials overnight.

The procedures give each aspirant a chance to have one pre-approved agent per polling station to observe unpacking of materials and setting up of the polling station at any time.