Residents queue to vote at Kaderbhoy Makadara in Mvita, Mombasa County on August 8, 2017. [Photo/ the-star.co.ke]
The August general election results did not reflect the will of the Coastal people, a report has revealed.According to Baraka FM, the report titled ‘Manipulated peoples will: Elections as a process or event’ released by civil societies from the region, indicates that the exercise was marred by massive irregularities that are likely to have influenced the outcome of different races including MCA, MP, senator, women rep and governor. The report indicates that in some of the polling stations in the region, the number of voters who turned up to take part in the August General election was lower than the number used in the declaration of results.“We observed tallying from August 9 to 10 in Likoni constituency tallying centre…On the announcement of the presidential results by the RO it was found that the voter declaration was contradicting form 34B .The form was stating that voter turnout was 49,896 while the RO mentioned 53,602,” read the report in part.The report, which was released on Monday, included testimonies of observers drawn from several civil society groups from the region including Human rights Agenda (HURIA) and Muslim for Human rights (MUHURI) among others. The report also states that some of the agents were seen campaigning for their candidates while a number of police officers took up the role of returning officers in Kwale.According to the report, some of the polling stations opened late only to close at 5pm thereby denying some of the voters a chance to take part in the exercise.“The PO at Kamare primary school should be investigated for infringing on the rights of 15 voters by denying them a chance to vote despite a two hour delay that was not the fault of the voters and the station closed at 5.00pm contrary to regulations.”