An unexpected surge in voters in the primaries for Kenya's ruling party overwhelmed authorities and led them to partially cancel the vote, the President announced on Saturday.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said large voter turnout sparked chaos and confusion during voting on Friday, leading to a shortage in voter materials.
"Primaries usually do not experience the kind of turnout we saw yesterday," Kenyatta said at a press conference.
His Jubilee Party took the "unprecedented and difficult decision to cancel the entire nominations exercise, because doing anything to the contrary may have resulted in a subversion of the democratic will of the people," the president said.
Protesters blocked streets and alleged rigging in the election. They voiced fear Police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse crowds at some places on Friday, newspaper "Daily Nation" reported.
Primaries in all 21 counties scheduled on Friday were cancelled - and it was unclear whether voting would proceed in the remaining 26 counties scheduled for next week. The country's general elections are scheduled for August 8.Kenyatta said the cancelled primaries would be rescheduled shortly.
More than 1,200 people were killed in ethnic clashes after an election in 2007.
Electronic tallying equipment failed in the country's most recent election in 2013, stoking voter concerns of fraud. The opposition took its complaints to the Supreme Court and only a handful of people died in protests.
The opposition alliance, known as NASA, was also holding polls this month but had staggered them over two weeks.
lustylotus on April 23rd, 2017 at 04:30 UTC »
This will get buried, but since people hardly ever read articles, I feel like I need to clarify some things. First, the title is click-bait and horribly misleading. Heck, I'll call it inaccurate. Second, Kenya's elections are scheduled for August 8. The ruling party, which is more a coalition of parties, cancelled their party primaries - not the country.
You don't care, but as a Kenyan-born individual, I hate when I see my home country's reputation dragged through the mud. That is all. Have a delightful and perceptive Sunday
Edit: I got caught up with the article inaccuracies as well. The primaries were postponed, not cancelled. Here is a more forthright description of events from the local paper http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Jubilee-secretariat-led-to-messed-up-primaries/1064-3900118-aqr0kyz/index.html
ladyscientist56 on April 23rd, 2017 at 01:16 UTC »
This title is clickbait AF
zealous_curator on April 23rd, 2017 at 00:17 UTC »
At least the elections are being rescheduled. It would have been worse to continue to hold them if there actually weren't enough ballots for everyone who wanted to vote. A large voter turnout is actually a good thing, but the ruling party just didn't seem to be prepared logistically.
edit: As /u/lustylotus notes below, the election that was rescheduled was the primary election for the ruling party only.