Twic East Disputed Election in Nairobi, Kenya: Petition for the Nullification of Election Results
8 min readTwic Transformation Team,
Twic East Youth Welfare Association,
Nairobi, Kenya.
Date: 20th April 2015
The Twic East Electoral Commission,
Twic East Youth Welfare Association,
Nairobi, Kenya.
Cc: Payam Leaders of Twic East County
Cc: County Leaders of Greater Bor Community
Cc: Mr. Dabek Duot Yak- Chairperson of Greater Bor Youth in Nairobi
Cc: Twic East Elders in Nairobi
Cc: Members of Clergy in Nairobi
Cc: Mr. Dau Akoi Jurkuch- Commissioner of Twic East County
Cc: Hon. Deng Dau Deng, MP-Twic East County
Cc: Embassy of South Sudan in Kenya
Cc: The Media Outlets
Dear Sir/Madam,
Re: Letter of Complaint to the Electoral Commission to compel it into reversing the announcement of the disputed election results
In response to the flawed election conducted on the 18th day of April 2015 at Eldorado Hotel and Rest, Kasarani, Nairobi, we as an aggrieved party which generously partook of the polling process hereby write a Letter of Complaint to the Twic East Electoral Commission beguiling its attention to give a human face to our genuine grievances.
It is fundamentally needless to say that any electoral commission is universally tasked with the responsibility to fairly, freely and transparently conduct the entire electoral exercise before, during and after the election date.
In the same breath, fairness, freeness and transparency of the electoral process are hard to be guaranteed in more elections than one. It is within the scope and procedure of the law for the electoral body to make a succinct determination on the winner and the loser during electoral process .it might be informed by the quality of work it expended. It is in light of the above that we humbly request you the electoral commissioners in entirety to stand the neutral ground and act as an arbiter of justice to two parties and not as a co-party to either side of the divide.
On the other hand, we, through your office, sincerely register our apologies to all Twic East Community Members who had turned out in large numbers to exercise their civil right of voting only to be deprived of the same by the agents of backwardness and retrogression. Accept these belated heartfelt apologies for that slap in the face, our noble Twic people! Any member of the community including this group writing this petition is duty-bound to protect and uphold the dignity of our name of Twic East Community in Nairobi. It is also a tall duty to live by the dictates of the rule of law as opposed to the rule of man manifestly depicted by the agents of discord during that material day.
It is a naked affront to Humanity and the democratic principles; codified under the Draft Transitional Constitution of South Sudan and of course all the subsidiary legal documents; to unfairly infringe upon the citizens’ voting right whose very interest informs the formulation of the same laws.
It is also worth the note to mention that it is the right of any rational beings to blow a whistle during the commission of injustice in confirmation of the maxim that “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”. Being noble creatures born out of the law and indeed the rule of law, we petition the worthy Electoral Commission of Twic East to relook its decision on the basis of the massive irregularities committed by thuggish Twic community members beyond their noses.
Taking cognizance of the glaring underhand inadequacies,bi-partisan perils and enormous human errors that took the center stage on that material day, we, the able and compact Campaign Team, the party aspirants with the full backing of payams leaders and indeed the very people who rally their political support behind us take it upon ourselves to enlighten the world on the deeply rooted claims which, in more ways than one, undoubtedly tainted the credibility and net quality of the purportedly announced election results in the evening of the 18th April.
The profound electoral malpractices we are dying to air are numerically elucidated as follows:
- Duration of polling time stipulated- the time frame within which the election was to be conducted was agreed to be between 8am-12 pm with possible extension depending upon the surrounding circumstances and punctuality of the electorates. Lamentably, the electorates arrived late and voting commenced at 10:06 am and it was unduly closed at approximately 12:19 pm which indeed was a clear violation of the gentleman’s agreement we, the agents and aspirants, had with the commission. This constriction was the mother of all inconveniences that marred the proceedings of voting process thereafter. This time constraint majorly underprivileged our supporters who came from far flanked areas of the city hence a clear infringement of their right to vote. In the same vein, the inflexibility of the electoral commission in terms of extending voting time left myriad of imaginations in the minds of many. What lingered everyone’s mind was the logic behind the stoppage of electoral process after a 2-hour voting time! Without any fear of contradiction, we hold the view that the voters were cleared off from the queue literally to block the perpetual win of the Twic Transformation Team candidates.
- Deployment of non-agents to man the gate– the manning of the gate by non-agents raised a lot of discontent on our side. We forwarded our dissatisfaction which was not put into consideration by the electoral commission. These non-agents colluded with our opponents and were only allowing anyone allied to the other party which indeed was detrimental to us. How the personalities to be stationed at the gate were arrived at is a question yet to be answered by the able electoral commission! The availability of thuggish and violent non-agents at the gate proved beyond any reasonable doubt that there was a clandestine conspiracy between our opponents to inhibit the balloting process since they come from their political constituencies.
- Use of siccative ink- we had, in our previous meeting with the commission, unanimously agreed that the durable ink which might take a day or two to wash off was to be provided. This noble request was unilaterally thrown under the carpet by the commission. Instead, the easily washable ink which doesn’t require even a minute to wash off was provided. This made the balloting process prone to possible recycling and repetitive voting by some members. The facial identification which was suggested to remedy the recycling by younger persons proved futile since it was impossible to physically identify the facial features of the teenagers. This substantially watered down the credibility of the voting process.
- The conduct of some electoral commissioners-Some commissioners’ conduct couldn’t show the decorum and integrity befitting any electoral commissioners who fathom their mandate. Some of the commissioners took partisan stand on the election date. Surprisingly, some commissioners were moving on the queue using unrefined language on the voters and even calling people names causing a lot of commotion in the balloting section. This too dilutes our trust in the electoral commission and we hereby deem the work of this commission redundant. The commissioners upon queries made to them turned a blind eye. They were overly unmoved by genuine concerns raised by both party agents and election observers. This expressly depicted how tyrannically the commissioners were imposing their incoherent decisions upon both parties to the case in issue!
- The declaration of the disputed results as our opponents claimed victory- The electoral laws of any country require the counting, crossing-checking and tallying of the votes to be done in presence of all the party agents, observers and the electoral commission. Conventionally, the tallied results are legally required to be duly signed by the agents of competing parties and by extension the assigned observers’ team. However, the aforementioned process was done in absence of our party agents and some of the observers who had walked out in protest of the process undertaken by the Commission. We perceived this as an irregularity of the highest degree that couldn’t allow our conscience to accept the purported elections outcome.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Nullification of the election results and conduct of a fresh electoral exercise – we recommend the electoral commission to rethink its earlier decision and instead conduct the fresh election which will reflect the true will of the full membership of TEYWA. The members of Twic East Community in Nairobi, in interest of tranquility and cohesion, must be given a fair playing ground to exercise their voting right devoid of unfairness, lack of transparency as exhibited during that polling day. In addition to that, it must sink in the agents of division’s minds that no one is more equal in Twic than others.
- Reconstitution of the Electoral Commission- more importantly, we recommend the community elders and the outgoing chairman of TEYWA to reconstitute the electoral team since we lost faith and confidence in some of them. Such qualities as integrity, outward behavior and bad temperament portrayed by some section of electoral commissioners do not qualify them to conduct elections which are, in more often than not, done under intense pressure. They must be replaced with men and women of integrity whose conduct is over and above reproach.
CONCLUSION
Failure to adhere to the above recommendations will lead to the dysfunctionality of a unitary TEYWA. The Twic Transformation Team will be forced to form its leadership on the 24st of April, 2015 if the commission fails to take a necessary action to address the contentious issues before the said date. We hereby call for the speedy response to these concerns or we altogether go in parallel directions leadership-wise since we deem the elections outcome to be incomplete, shambolic and unverifiable. We hope that our petition will meet your due consideration as soon as possible.
At the bottomline, we earnestly advise that it will be too unfortunate if this Commission preside over the disintegration of TEYWA by swearing in the ad hoc self-declared leaders! We are in utmost sincerity urging the electoral body to treat the election results as null and void.
Yours faithfully,
The campaign Agents (1st complainants)
- Ngor Atem Nyok……………..
- Chol Mayen Kuir………………
- Ghak Chol Ghak……………….
- Kuol Jok Anyieth………………
- Dut Deng Ghak…………………
- Amol Mayen Amol……………
The TTT aspirants ( 2nd complainants)
- John Malek Kur Malek, Chair….…………………
- Dut Mabior Ajang, Secretary General………………
- Ayen Dau Garang, Treasurer………………
This petition was compiled by John Malek Kur’s campaign team – Twic East in Nairobi Election Compaign
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