Kuppet election in Homa Bay cancelled after chaos erupt

The election which was to be held at GEB Girls secondary school in Kosele town was supposed to start early in the morning on Sunday but it delayed up to around 11:30 am due to complaints by a section of teachers who were supporting particular candidates.

The teacher's complaints of alleged plans to steal elections in favor of a particular team of candidates.

The teachers argued that the irregularities were going to work against their preferred candidates.

The tension escalated at about 1 pm when a group of teachers arrived at the polling station, chanting songs to indicate that they could not allow the election to proceed.

They alleged that rigging had already occurred in the election thus it could lead to the disadvantage of their preferred candidates.

They alleged that some candidates were stuffing unauthorised ballot papers into the ballot boxes.

Efforts by the election officials to calm them down proved futile.

They went straight into the polling station and got hold of the ballot boxes and discarded ballot papers that had been cast.

Upon noticing what had happened, other teachers were infuriated and became unruly.

The scenes almost resulted to a fistfight with each side supporting their candidate.

Police had to intervene to disperse the teachers.

Kuppet national organizing secretary Paul Maingi who was overseeing the exercise said they decided to cancel the election after the teachers became unruly.

The election was postponed to an unknown date.

“There were cases of irregularities and the teachers were so unruly that we could not control them,” Maingi said.

He said they are going to deliberate on the matter with the Kuppet national office on when to hold another election.

“We expect to call contestants to the head office so that we schedule a date for another election,” Maingi said.

The Kuppet election has attracted two line-ups of teachers eyeing various elective positions.

They are Team Focus headed by the incumbent executive secretary Stephen Yogo who is defending his seat and team petition for change led by Samuel Owee who is eyeing the executive secretary position.