Category: Elections
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Long Queues in Mathare
0650 hrs: I’m at St. Teresa’s Girls’ High School in the Mathare Constituency of Nairobi County. The polling station is roaring with life. A big confusion looms. People are confused as to how to identify their voting booths. There is a huge crowd finger-tracing their names at the list outside the gate. Most complain their…
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Just Another Mundane Day?
0420 hrs: I wake up to what seems a normal day. As I prepare to leave, I notice the absence of Matatu horns that usually go off in the distant Ngong around this time. Perhaps it’s because it’s a not just an elections day but it’s also a public holiday. The silence though is frequently…
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Nai ni ya nani!
0558hrs. In the horizon I can hear boda boda guys urging a sleepy town to wake up and go vote. I am on Wanyee Rd, heading to Toi Primary School, just off Ngong Rd, one of the main arteries that feed the heart of Nairobi CBD. Ngong Rd hardly ever slept but then again Ngong…
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Two Sides of The Coin
For three elections – the fresh presidential election on 26 October 2017 included – I have worked with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission as an electoral official, first as a Biometric Voter Registration clerk in the first ever electronic voter registration in 2012, and as a polling clerk in 2013 and 2017. In 2022,…
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2022, Kenya’s Second Most Expensive Election
At an average cost of about KSh. 2,000 per voter, the August 9 general election is one of the most expensive elections in Africa and the second most expensive in Kenya.
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2022, A Win for Intersex Persons
Until 2019, intersex persons were not officially recognised in Kenya’s national population data. But during the Housing and Population Census held that year, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) included a marker for a third gender which signaled a significant step towards inclusivity.
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2022, What’s in it for the Women?
At 49.12% of the registered voters, women make up almost half of the electorate, and thus any serious political contender must go the extra mile in seeking to appease such a significant national constituency.
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Sellebrity: Fame Versus Electability
The celebrity as a politician is officially a thing (preceded by the bizarre the-politician-as-a-celebrity epoch of bling bling hookah smoking honourables). And so many are abandoning the mic as they seek to blur the line between showbiz and the once-upon-a-time hallowed halls of power, with most riding solely on name recognition more than anything else.
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On Voter Apathy. Is Anyone Listening?
There’s certainly a plethora of reasons why this particular section of Kenyans is indifferent to electoral politics, one of them (if not key among them) being the unassailable view that the outcome of a Kenyan election (especially at the presidential level, which has resulted in post-election violence before) isn’t decided by the number of votes…
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The Lessons We Missed in Matungu and Kabuchai
The role of the police during elections is to safeguard the right to vote by providing security to voters and guarding ballots. History has however shown that the police are occasionally misused to either interfere with or prevent voters from voting. During the President Daniel arap Moi era, the police and provincial administration were used…