* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Quite a lot of shops were closed in Nairobi's Kibera slum on Thursday as vote counting continued, three days after Monday's election
By Katy Migiro, AlertNet correspondent in Nairobi
Thursday, March 7 2013
Quite a lot of shops were closed in Nairobi’s Kibera slum on Thursday as vote counting continued, three days after Monday’s election.
Those that were open had reduced stocks because of a fall in demand and fears of looting if violence breaks out.
“Business has dropped,” shop owner Wycliffe Monda said mid-morning. “In fact, I want to close now.”
People crowded round newspaper stands and televisions to catch the latest news.
“Presidential results out tomorrow,” The Star declared optimistically. Lower down, it said the results may not be out until Monday, the seven-day deadline for their release.
Despite the long wait, people were calm.
“People have trust in [Issack] Hassan [chairman of the electoral commission],” said Monda.“We are sure of the commission,”
Monda voted for Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is trailing Uhuru Kenyatta in the partial count.
“If he doesn’t win, we’ll just accept it because we see they have conducted the election peacefully,” he said.
But Odinga’s team doesn’t agree with Monda’s assessment.
On Thursday morning, Odinga’s running mate, Kalonzo Musyoka, called a press conference to allege irregularities.
“We, as a coalition, take the position the national vote tallying process lacks integrity and has to be stopped and re-started using primary documents from the polling stations,” he said. “We have evidence the results we are receiving have been doctored.”
The electoral commission ignored his call to stop the vote count.
Authorities have insisted the process is fair even though the new electronic counting system has failed, forcing them to resort to manual transmission. Results continued to be read out as returning officers reached Nairobi, some flown in from remote parts by helicopter.
Musyoka emphasised that he was not making a call for mass action and urged voters to remain calm.
“We are waiting for some words from Raila,” said one of his supporters, Robert Okello, a mechanic in Kibera. “If Raila tells us to be patient, we shall be patient. If Raila tells us to go and demonstrate, we shall do so.”
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
