Nairobi — Kenyan blogger Daudi Were shares insights on the 2007 national elections from Nairobi. In this entry, he describes the scene at polling stations in the city.
Voting experience - Kenyan election 2007
Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
Election fever has gripped Kenya as long queues stretch out of polling stations. I passed a queue from the polling station at Kilimani Primary School that stretched all the way to Yaya Centre.
I arrived at my polling station at St. Mary's School at 07.25 approximately one and half hours later than my plan to be there at 06.00. Delay was mainly because Safaricom GPRS would not let me upload my previous post. At Saint Mary's the first thing that struck me was the queues were much shorter than the ones I had seen at other polling stations on my way in.
So here is the first lesson of this election: choose your polling station carefully! Two polling stations next to each other in the same ward can have a huge difference in terms of registered voters.
The polling station had five separate voting points. We were arranged in five queues alphabetically according to last name. Although some queues seemed shorter than others they quickly filled up to more or less even things up showing the officials had calculated the numbers for each queue correctly.
One thing I noticed was that no one was wearing any political party merchandise and the conversations in the queue were distinctly non political. Rather than being divided, by queuing together to exercise our civic duty and responsibility we were bound together in a sort of patriotic camaraderie. We all felt it was worthwhile to take part in the vote and that ultimately was what mattered. Of course it helped that the polling station opened on time, voting was taking place and the queues were moving.
When you got to the front of the queue you handed over your National Identification card/Passport and your voter's card to the first official (1) who checks to make sure that the details on the two documents match and he then passed the documents to the second official (2) who checks that the name on the voter's card appears in the Voter's Registrar. Satisfied that I am entitled to vote at this particular polling station they pass my documents on to a third (3) and fourth (4) person who hand me my ballots which consisted of three sheets in total, one sheet for presidential, one sheet for parliamentary, one sheet for civic candidates each one a different colour paper, red/pink, yellow and blue respectively.
The Presidential ballot was printed in colour and had a passport size photo of each of the nine candidates next to their name, party name and party symbol. The parliamentary ballot was printed in colour as well but did not have the photos. The civic ballot was printed in plain black on blue paper.
Once you collected your ballots you left your ID and Voter's Card with the last official (5) as you made your way to the voting booth to mark your ballot. The voting booth was a table partitioned into three using cardboard. Simple and functional. You had enough privacy to mark your ballot without your neighbour seeing your choices.
Once you were done you then cast your ballots into three boxes, one for presidential ballots, one for parliamentary, one for civic. Each box had a label on the top to ensure that you put the correct ballot in the correct box.
Once you cast your ballot you went back to the desk to collect your documents from the official (5) and for the all important ritual of dipping your finger in the purple dye which signifies you have voted and stops people from voting twice.
All of this process is watched by an eager team of observers from (amongst others) Kenyan civil society, agents from each of the political parties, representatives of religious groups, the African Union, The Commonwealth, The European Union.
Disabled and elderly voters went straight to the front of the queue where a seat was reserved for them as their documents were checked before being allowed to vote.
And that was that. I was finished by 0910. 1 hour and 40 minutes.
I then started driving around Nairobi to see what else was going on.
In the city centre most businesses and shops were closed. From major multinationals to small kiosks. All closed. The only places open were food places such as Java and Dorman's coffee houses and some fast food joints.
The polling station at Holy Family Basilica had the longest queue I had seen today. For those of you who know Nairobi the queue starts at Post Bank on Koinange Street and heads straight across towards the gate of Holy Family. Then it takes a right turn, all the way around the GPO building, past Nyayo house, onto Kenyatta Avenue, back on to Koinange towards Holy Family, then it turns right again but this time goes down towards Intercontinental, passes between City Hall and KICC, back up onto Standard Street, along the back of City Hall around the corner, into the gate of Holy Family to the forecourt where you are then finally split into the lines alphabetically. That queue is easily 3+ kilometres. I talked to some ladies who joined the queue at 05.00 and at 10.30 were only around halfway through the queue. 5.5 hours and they were nowhere near close to voting! Remember my whole process took less than 2 hours, I repeat choice of polling station is VERY important! They sent me for coffee and settled in for the long haul. They were not going to leave without voting.
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I then went to a polling station at Uhuru Gardens Primary School in Langata constituency. Here there was a lot of tension in the air. People had been queuing from 04.00 and the ballot boxes did not arrive until a few minutes to 09.00. A friend who joined the queue the same time I joined the queue at St. Mary's had not moved forward at all. The queue was just starting to move when I got there at 11.00. They finally voted at 14.00.
This shows just how different voting experiences can be across one city on the same day. Outside Nairobi in Kisumu bars and nightclubs remained shut on Wednesday night so that people would be sober to vote on Thursday and in Kakamega bar are refusing to sell alcohol to people who haven't voted!
The Electoral Commission of Kenya has set up camp in KICC and, my goodness, that building is surrounded by the most serious bunch of military personnel armed with everything from heavy fire power to serious looking rungus.
They won't smile, they won't even blink, they just look at you with a very mean stare. I can tell you right now that only the ridiculously brave (or foolish) would try to cause any fracas anywhere near KICC today. This is the closest I was brave enough to get to take a photo!
