Outlawed gang disrupts mock Malindi polls

Photo/MIKE KALAMA/NATION

Ballot boxes destroyed during the mock elections at St Andrews Primary school on March 24, 2012.

A police officer was on Saturday injured and his firearm stolen after rowdy youths attacked a polling station during mock elections in Malindi constituency.

The trial elections, which were also being held simultaneously in Kajiado North constituency, were organised by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to allow residents to see how voting would take place in the next General Election.

The exercise was meant to simulate the process that will unfold during the polls set for March 4 next year by the IEBC amidst great controversy.

In Malindi constituency 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 attackers.

Two female officers managed to escape and sought refuge in a nearby house.

IEBC officials were forced to cancel the elections after they were attacked by youths wielding crude weapons and their property, including ballot boxes, was vandalised.

The attack was linked to the Mombasa Republican Council which is agitating for the secession of Coast Province.

When contacted, the council distanced itself from the attack claiming it was a government-instigated plan to discredit them.

Mr Mohammad Rashid Mraja, spokesman for the outlawed organisation, condemned the IEBC for choosing Malindi in the trial as he said they were fully aware there was a pending dispute in the region.

“Holding such a mock exercise here is tantamount to inciting and testing our resolve that no Kenyan elections will be held in this region,” he said in an interview at the Sunday Nation’s Mombasa bureau.

But Coast provincial commissioner Earnest Munyi issued a 24-hour notice to MRC members who are alleged to have stolen a gun during a raid on one Malindi polling station to surrender it or face the force of the law.

“We suspect that it is MRC that was involved in the raid and we are giving this notice. If they don’t respond we will use all government machinery to recover the rifle,” said the visibly angered PC.

On Saturday, Mr Mraja warned that the group’s patience with frequent government harassment on matters affecting coastal people was wearing thin.

The spokesman told the IEBC to cease any plans to involve the region in preparations for the General Election until the dispute between the government and the MRC was amicably resolved.

According to him the commission had an ample choice of constituencies in which to stage a trial election other than Malindi where its members know there is a dispute pending with the government.

According to one of its officials on the ground, Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri) claimed the disruption of the Malindi polls was a ploy be the National Security Intelligence Service and the provincial administration to put the MRC in a bad light.

“Our preliminary findings raise questions how three officers armed with firearms could be overwhelmed by four youths armed with machetes?” Muhuri executive director Hussein Khalid said.

The way the attacks were carried out on the two polling stations – Malindi Primary and St Andrew’s Primary – appeared to have been stage-managed in order to portray the outlawed group negatively, he said.

But Kisauni MP Hassan Joho condemned the MRC leadership for disrupting the exercise.

“The action of our youths interfering with the IEBC’s exercise in Malindi is wrong and should not have happened in the new dispensation,” he said.

But in Kajiado North, the voting held in 12 of the 117 polling stations in Kajiado North constituency take place peacefully.

Voters cast mock ballots for president, Member of Parliament, senator, governor, women’s representative and county ward representative.

The ballots bore no images of politicians–past, present or aspiring. Instead there were grainy pictures people named Marembo Msupuu and Kijana wa Bidii.

“Voters” did not have to be registered; a national identity card was sufficient. But the heavy presence of security forces was a good indication of the importance the IEBC attached to the process.

The exercise that began at 8 am and ended at 3 pm did not attract many voters, and the turnout appeared to be way below IEBC’s expectations of 30,000. This was attributed to the failure of IEBC to sensitise targeted voters.

“I just heard about it from a friend at the market,” said Mr Peter Nguku who cast his vote at Nakeel Primary School.

But curiosity of how the voting process in next year’s general elections might be conducted however was too strong to resist.

“People think it was a stupid exercise, but at least I know better than them,” he said.

The fact that real politicians were not in partly explains the low turnout, said Ms Ann Semante, a presiding officer at the station.

“Elections are about politicians and their absence took out the fun for some.”