Kenya Elections Part 1: Voting Day
The day finally came. 4th March 2013. Our election day. According to the new constitution it was supposed to be in August 2012 but was postponed. Kenyans have been waiting for this day, to decide one president and one government not a coalition decided from a crisis. I was hired by Agence France-Presse (AFP) to cover the elections from inside Nairobi’s Kibera slum which was the scene of much of Kenya’s 2007/8 election violence being a stronghold for Raila Odinga then the opposition party now one of the 2013 Presidential candidates. You can view a selection of my images from the 2007/8 elections and post-election violence here on my blog.
The election day images I filed to AFP are on my official website please click here to view. Herewith below is a selection of images from Kenya’s election day 4th March 2013.
** All Images Strictly Copyright (c) Georgina Goodwin. All Rights Reserved.**
7am: Dawn voter queue for Toi Market polling station near Kibera Slum
8am: View from residential balcony with a tied up chicken of voter queue at Old Kibera Primary School polling station
8.10am: Voters and Officials with seated onlooking Observers at Old Kibera polling station
8.20am: 5yr old Mwangaa with queues behind on voting day in Nairobi’s Kibera slum
8.20am: 5yr old Mwangaa with the ‘B’ queue for voters at Kibra Social Grounds, Nairobi
9am: Prime Minister and 2013 Presidential candidate Raila Odinga after he cast his ballot at Old Kibera Primary School
9.15am: Prime Minister and 2013 Presidential candidate Raila Odinga’s wife Ida Odinga waits for him in the car while he casts his vote at Old Kibera Primary School.
10am: Balcony chicken overlooking Old Kibera Primary School voter queue
11am: View over Nairobi’s Kibera slum with election posters
12am: Singer-guitarist 20yr old “Mandela” sings to entertain voters in the queue
1pm: “Kaptain” Mohamed Ali – voter ID security check volunteer
1pm: “Kaptain” Mohamed Ali checks voter ID cards
2pm: Voter queues and IEBC queuing clerk at Olympic Primary School in Kibera
3pm: Hawa Hassan, a Nubian born in Kibera in 1953, gets ready to leave her house with her Kenyan ID needed in order to vote. For almost 100 years Nubians have been denied Kenyan citizenship since the British brought them from southern Sudan to work as soldiers now they have all been granted status and are voting in Kenya’s 2013 elections.
3.20pm: Hassan Ali, a 30yr old Nubian living in Kibera, heads to the voting queues. For almost 100 yrs Nubians have been denied Kenyan citizenship after being brought from southern Sudan to work as soldier by the British. They now have full status and are voting in Kenya’s 2013 elections.
4pm: Aisha Ali, a Nubian born in Kibera in 1956, about to cast her vote. Nubians were denied Kenyan citizenship for almost 100 yrs since they were brought from southern Sudan by the British as soldiers. Now they have status and can vote.
4.15pm: Aisha Ali, a Nubian born in 1956 in Kibera, gets her finger marked after voting. Nubians were denied citizenship for almost 100 yrs in Kenya after they were brought to be soldiers from southern Sudan by the British. Now they have been granted status and are voting.
4.30pm: 5yr old Zamzam and her sisters go for a walk alongside voter queues on election voting day.
5pm: Voter at Old Kibera Primary School polling station
6.30pm: The last voter queue at Kibra Social Grounds on election day
7pm: Last votes going in around 8pm at Kibra Social Grounds
8.30pm: Tired officials formally close the ballot boxes at Kibra Social Grounds
9pm: Vote counting starts counting at Kibra Social Grounds
9.30pm: Ballot papers are opened by lamplight and shown to a panel of officials, the paper piled on the correct resulting candidates. Kibra Social Grounds
Demonstration against Kenyan MPs voting their own salary increase
A text was sent to some of us Kenyans who have subscribed to local mobile phone network news information saying that some Kenyan Civil Society Groups had planned a peaceful demonstration that was to start at Uhuru (Swahili for Freedom) Park at 1Pm and move through Nairobi city centre to Parliament buildings, to end at 2pm. The reason? To protest peacefully (ie no police needed, no tear gas, no rioting, no closed streets) against our wonderful Members of Parliament voting themselves, for the second time, a rise in salary which would further distance them from the people they are supposed to be serving (us Kenyans) and also making them the absolutely highest paid politicians in the world.
Only 40 (approx) out of our 40 million population turned up to protest. And these were well spoken, well dressed and seemingly well educated Kenyans. I am told the ‘war’ against this issue is online, with petitions being passed and signed…More demonstrations were planned to follow which were more successful but we have yet to fully understand the weight of this matter as a nation and to empower ourselves to make the changes necessary to allow us the lives we dream to live and the country we all dream Kenya to be.
