Kenyans prepare for tomorrow’s election – and a possibility of violence

After driving close to 400 kilometers from Nairobi City, our Toyota Voxx pulls up in this mainly agricultural town at about 8pm. If you have been to the Rift Valley part of Kenya – to towns like Eldoret –but not to Kitale, you have probably missed spectacular sights of this peaceful town which is culturally diverse. Kitale is a town in Trans-Nzoia County. It has 5 constituencies, including Saboti, Chelengani, Endebess, Kiminini and Kwanza. For me and my other two colleagues, a Zimbabwean and a Tanzanian, this will be our area of deployment as part of the 78-man East African Community (EAC), Common for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Intergovernmental Authority (IGAD) election observation team deployed across Kenya. As we arrive in this town, it is getting dark and finding accommodation is not easy given the fact that the big boys of the area – Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetangula – have been in town for their last rallies before the Monday election. After spending a night at one of the small hotels in this town, our next mission is to make a familiarization visit to the county’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) offices. On our visit to his office, the IEBC Coordinator for Saboti Constituency, Farah Ibrahim, seated in his tastefully furnished office, welcomes us warmly. But he is inquisitive about our nationalities. When I tell him that I am from Rwanda, he comments: “I admire the speed at which your country has achieved democratic gains especially after the 1994 Genocide. I hope we shall also emulate you.” Here, it is evident that memories of the 2007/2008 post-election violence that claimed 1,300 lives and displaced more than 300,000 people are still fresh in the minds of many Kenyans. With 33,000 polling stations, the Police have deployed close to 100,000 officers, who will be backed up by officers from different security agencies like the Prisons service. Trans-Nzoia Assistant Commissioner Joash Abongo says they have made additional deployment of security in the Saboti and Endebesse constituencies due to the hotly-contested position of Governorship of the county. With only one day left to the elections, the hustle and bustle along the entrance of some shops in Kitale is evident as matatu drivers and taxi-motor cyclists rush to make their last buck before Monday. They are preparing for tomorrow’s elections and a possibility of violence afterward. In Nairobi, for instance, most people are going out of their way to make hay while it still shines. “The English say that once beaten, twice shy. What we experienced during the2007/2008 post-election violence is bad enough and we don’t anything like that again,” says John Nalianya, a motorcyclist. It’s not common to see the elderly in this part of Kenya. In fact, you would be excused for thinking that it’s a town of only energetic youths. Just like many other Kenyan towns – Kiambu, Mulanga, Nakuru – the elderly stay at their farms. They send the young ones to buy food to the markets. Kitale town is unique in a way. Several decadeds ago, it used to be a white settlers area. But after independence, close to 50 tribes settled in the Trans-Nzoia county, which explains its cosmopolitan nature. “The predominant tribe here is Luhya, who use bicycles or motorcycles as their major mode of transport,” says Stephen Othieno, himself a resident of Kitale. Residents say that you will find more taxi-motos here compared to many other Kenyan towns because of the fact that the county neighbours the Kenya-Uganda border town of Suam along Mt. Elgon hills where motorcycles are mostly used. From this town, one will surely agree that the 2013 Kenyan election is indeed a show of financial muscle. Presidential candidates traverse the countryside in their helicopters while media houses have smiled all the way to the bank after devoted a substantial amount of their air time to adverts of these candidates. In Kitale, huge red billboards and banners of presidential aspirant Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto under their Jubilee Alliance are predominantly seen hanging above major highways and markets. According to Othieno, Jubilee Alliance erected the billboards bearing in mind that Trans-Nzoia is an unshakable stronghold of Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, who are running under the Coalition of Reform and Democracy (CORD) alliance.