NASA in massive electoral agents ‘recruitment’

The opposition, National Super Alliance (NASA), will be recruiting more than 200,000 presidential agents to be deployed across all the 45,000 polling stations during the August 8 General Election.

Opposition leaders led by their presidential flag bearer, Raila Odinga, have on numerous occasions refused to accept that they were fairly defeated by Jubilee Party’s President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 general polls, with the former Premier and Wiper Party Leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, alleging that they were rigged out of the process back then.

Mr. Odinga, during the official launch of NASA’s presidential campaigns at the Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega over the weekend, said that five of the agents will be deployed in each polling station in the country to ensure a nearly 100% voter turn-out especially in their perceived strongholds as well as guarding votes in the event of a possible ballot rigging by rogue IEBC officials, who will be working under instructions from Jubilee, to avoid what ensued in 2013.

“The five, in each polling station, will have access to our parallel tally systems so that voter outcome in the particular station is exactly what will be reflected in our tallying system,” said the opposition team.

According to Mr. Odinga, each of the agents will have the official voter register of the area so that they will be marking every voter who has already cast their vote while organizing to personally seek those yet to vote as per the register to advise and encourage them to do so.

This, Odinga says, will ensure NASA has a mass voter turn-out come August 8. The agents’ recruitment process will be communicated in due time through a short code message.

Currently, there is an ongoing case at the Court of Appeal, which NASA has been enjoined, in which the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is seeking to reverse a High Court ruling on the announcement of presidential election results.

The High Court on April 4, 2017 ruled that presidential election results announced at the polling station and constituency levels will be final – a directive that the poll body wants reversed.

“The fact is when people at the polling station have voted, they have voted and the counting at the polling station is final. The good thing about having a parallel tallying centre is that, in the event that IEBC announces results that are completely outrageous, we will have evidence to prove the contrary,” Kisumu Senator, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, argued while supporting NASA’s move to set up a parallel tallying center other than that of IEBC and why the High Court ruling should not be reversed.