Jubilee Party Primaries Kick Off Smoothly In Thika Town Constituency.

Some of the scenes in Thika's polling centres on Tuesday during the repeat Jubilee Party Primaries.

Jubilee Party repeat primaries kicked off in all polling stations across Thika Town Constituency with minimal incidences having been reported.

Jubilee seems to have learnt its lesson from last Friday’s confusion and disorder as the process went on swiftly in majority of the centres. Most of them were already opened by 7am with long queues already formed.

Delays and confusion marred the exercise in several stations. The morning session was characterised with complaints ranging from attempted stealing of ballots to delays in starting the process that were construed to mean sleight of hand as Kenyan public are conditioned to believe any deviation from their expectations is informed by mischief.

There were cases of some political brokers hovering around the polling stations trying to influence the voting pattern by whispering the names of their preferred candidates to would be voters. This scheme was more so at the gates to the polling centres and as the voters were heading to cast the votes as the perpetrators pretended to ‘assist’ them.

However, voters who spoke to Thika Town Today lauded the process saying the will of the people, “will prevail.”

“There is order unlike last time. No party member is being turned away,” said one voter in Township Ward as he cast his vote a Thika Stadium polling station.

Kiambu senator, Paul Kimani Wamatangi thanked the Jubilee Party for the organisation of the repeat primaries, hoping that the will of the people would prevail. He was also happy that the party had increased the number of people handling the exercise.

However, he pleaded for patience among the electorate saying that failure to do so would mean a few people deciding their fate for the next five years.

“Let’s not mind the length of time we wait here to exercise your fundamental right to choose your leaders. You better waste this one day that loss the entire five years having allowed the wrong leaders be voted into office by a few people,” said Wamatangi.

Security was beefed up just in case some people decided to cause chaos.

By the time the doors to most polling stations were closed at 6pm, long queues were still visible with people still patient to wait for their turn to cast their vote.