Unbiased vote tracking will prevent post-election mayhem

It is now official: Donald John Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America. A month ago, this column argued that the future of democracy as a universally accepted form of human governance hangs on respect for the doctrine of peaceful transfer of power.

Even as violent protests rocked the streets of American cities (Washington, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Nashville) amid chants of “Putin’s puppet” and “Kremlin employee of the year,” the wheel of American democracy turned as President Barack Obama handed over power to Trump in the time-honoured inauguration ceremony, tellingly attended by Hillary Clinton and former American presidents, on January 20.

In Africa, the doctrine of peaceful transition has its sworn enemies. In The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh had, until yesterday, dithered to transfer power amicably to the president-elect Adama Barrow, after losing elections in December last year. The Gambian despot has finally capitulated to the threat by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) to militarily intervene to force him out of power after his term expired and Barrow was sworn in as President in Gambia’s embassy in the neighbouring Senegal on January 19.

In Kenya, sensational claims of fraud in the ongoing voter registration cast a dark cloud over the doctrine of peaceful transfer of power after the August 8 election.

NEW TEAM

Here, the horses have bolted. A brand new team of commissioners was sworn in on January 20 to steer the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). Earlier on, the IEBC secretariat had launched a 30-day long voter registration exercise on January 16.

Kenya’s elites have to jettison election manoeuvres likely to inexorably lead to post-election uncertainty and embrace the doctrine of orderly transfer of power as the foundation stone of enduring democracy.

One dangerous gambit that should be ditched is the potential misuse of a system of election observation known as parallel voter tabulation (PVT), also known as quick count, which has gained popularity worldwide over the last 30 years.

On January 3, 2017, Royal Media Services owner Samuel Kamau Macharia threw the spanner into the works by farcically claiming in the Senate that he had smoking-gun proof that ODM leader Raila Odinga had won the 2007 General Election.

Its veracity aside, Macharia tethered the claim to the independent vote tracking system.

“In 2007, we tracked votes from every polling station using satellite gadgets donated to us by USAid and the European Union … We have clear statistics of exactly how the voting went,” he said.

WERE DISADVANTAGED

He laments that in 2013, media houses were disadvantaged because they solely relied on the IEBC tallying centre to relay election results.

He vowed to set up a centre within Royal Media to track the August election.

Undoubtedly, attracting donor funding for such a centre can prove a rewarding money-spinning venture for any media house, but a palpably biased vote tallying entity in a media house publicly aligned to a known political formation has a serious credibility deficit and can fuel uncertainty.

As a scientific instrument, PVT independently verifies election results by observing the voting process, counting of ballots, collection of official polling station results, and independently tabulating these results for comparison with the results of the election authorities.

In this sense, independent vote tracking enhances the integrity of election results, provides lessons on how to improve the electoral system in the future, and helps entrench democracy.

Justifiably, PVT has become an indelible feature of election observation, significantly contributing to the integrity of elections and stability of as diverse countries as Ghana (2016), Nigeria (2015), Uganda (2016) and Zambia (2016). In Kenya, neutral PVT affirmed the integrity of the 2010 referendum and 2013 presidential election.

ELECTION FRAUD

Predictably, PVT centres will most likely be the weapon of choice by some campaigners seeking to challenge Jubilee power by alleging election fraud in 2017. This thinking taps into the veins of PVT’s revolutionary origins and proven capacity to galvanise “a people power revolution.”

Notably, PVT was first used in the Philippines where a neutral civil society coalition, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, showed that the difference between its PVT results and officially tabulated results of the 1986 presidential election was unbelievably too big.

On the basis of these results, NCMFE galvanised a people power revolution that pushed President Ferdinand Marcos out of power, replacing him with opposition leader Corazon Aquino.

As such, the PVT system has gained great appeal among radical opposition parties. With the return of the Cold War era geopolitics – following the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia in the 21st century – PVT has become the tool of choice for influencing elections and removing from power “hostile” or illiberal governments in emerging democracies.

Across Africa’s flashpoints, vote tracking has proved a dangerous double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

'OPPOSITION STRATEGY'

In Zimbabwe, vote tracking is a handmaiden of the “Opposition Strategy” of foreign governments.

During the March, 2008 election, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists were funded to establish a PVT centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.

On the basis of results from pictures of displayed results outside polling stations relayed to the Johannesburg centre, opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai declared that he had won the election with 50.3 pc of the vote – in contrast to the 48.6 pc tally announced by the Zimbabwe Independent Electoral Commission.

In the ensuing runoff, Zimbabwe plunged into its worst violence.

In Cote d’Ivoire’s 2010 election, both President Laurent Gbagbo and then opposition leader Alassane Ouattara claimed victory, but partisan PVT results by civil society groups fuelled the crisis.

In the end, the results of the United Nations parallel vote tracking swung public opinion in favour of Ouattara, who was certified the victor.

Kenya should invest in unbiased vote tracking centres to avert post-election mayhem.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is chief executive, Africa Policy Institute and former co-director, national secretariat for 2010 constitutional referendum.