NAIROBI, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Friday announced a raft of measures that will be implemented to ensure the Aug. 8 polls are free from any form of malpractices.
Wafula Chebukati, the Chairman of IEBC said at a briefing on election preparedness that adequate safeguards are in place to enhance transparency in the forthcoming polls.
"We are cognizant of both operational and technological risks that we may face during the upcoming polls and have put strict measures in place in order to deliver free, credible and transparent elections," said Chebukati.
Foreign diplomats, members of the civil society and media attended Kenya's electoral agency's briefing that sought to reaffirm its preparedness to facilitate transparent national polls in August.
Chebukati said the electoral body has been collecting views from the public and other interested parties to help improve its technical and managerial capacity to oversee elections that are expected to be hotly contested.
"The commission will promptly address concerns raised by Kenyans in regard to improving the credibility of forthcoming polls. The public has raised issue related to the reliability of technology that will transmit results and security at polling stations," Chebukati said.
He assured the public the electoral agency has invested in state of the art technology to enhance voter identification and transmission of Presidential results from over 40,000 polling stations countrywide to the national tallying centre in Nairobi.
"We have heavily invested in backup system to ensure that tallying of votes is not interrupted in case of power failure. The commission has engaged three leading internet service providers to enhance seamless transmission of results," said Chebukati.
He added that the electoral agency has trained over 350,000 personnel who will be deployed to polling stations countrywide to oversee the voting exercise.
Regarding security during the upcoming national polls, Chebukati said that two police officers will be deployed in every polling station to avert fracas and other electoral malpractices.
Kenyans are gearing up for the August polls to elect a new President, Lawmakers, County executives and Ward representatives.
The electoral body has already set up supportive infrastructure to enable 19.5 million registered voters countrywide to cast their ballots to elect new office bearers.
