The alarm went at 4.00 :( The DFID driver was there in time to pick me up and drive to Isabelle's house. Then we went to the first site to check the opening. At 4.30 it is rather dark, but there was a beautiful big moon. The rooms didn't have lights so they had to wait till close to 6.00 for the final preparations. It started by showing all the staff, dressed in white T shirts saying "polling staff", and swearing in. I don't know what they swore, probably loyalty to Rwanda. The coordinator (his T shirt said polling centre coordinator) explained a little, gave out some leaflets explaining the procedures and showed the empty ballots. A polling centre usually consist of 6 to 10 polling stations. A polling station has four staff; no. one lets people in one by one, no. two checks their ID and voter card and crosses the name of the list. Then the person goes behind a sheet to put his/her thumbprint next to the party of choice. Staff member no. three puts a stamp on the voter card ATOYE (voted) and puts some ink on the pinky, next to the nail.
Apart from the staff every party is allowed to send observers, the smaller parties can not afford many observers, but most stations have a RPF observer. Some organisations are also allowed to send observers, EU, Human Right Watch, Private Sector Federation, some Embassies ... to name a few.
So it looked pretty organized and everyone was queuing properly, no-one was campaigning, no unauthorised persons present.... Only most ballot boxes were not sealed, obviously something missing from the training. We did not think this was on purpose, nor was it a big problem, there were always people present, making it impossible to get to the ballot boxes without anyone noticing. But still. We went to the next one, still very urban, a slightly different atmosphere, different the time of day, more presence of police, schoolchildren, we felt more watched. Talking to people, we understand there is no real pressure, never threats, but people still go to vote because the 'feel' pressured, or as they put it: "better vote, just in case people check if you voted". This is something you can never report, it can't be proven, and sometimes it is just a feeling of people, not based on anything. After the third urban polling centre we told our driver to go as rural as possible within the Kigali province. It turned out you can drive quite far without leaving Kigali. We liked this much better, most people didn't speak french, so our driver could show his use as interpreter. The 'tent' was purpose built with sticks and plastic sheets, quite well built actually. Typically it took several people and phone calls to see if I could make a picture. When confirmed though they were very open. These however were the only two photos I took.
For our last polling centre we chose one close to home and the district office. The stations closed at 15.00 and were told to wait until 16.00 to start the counting, in case there are queues. Anybody in the queue at 15.00 could still vote. However most Rwandans vote early, so they can do whatever they want after. It also was announced an official day off, just the weekend before, so some people knew it, some not.The counting went well, every paper showed and shouted out, ticked on a big list. They first dubious vote was shown and they asked us if it was valid, to their surprise we didn't want to give our opinion, a bit like when a girl asks "is the red dress better than the blue". I think they made the right decision. In the end there were just 6 invalid votes on a total 500. Then we had to wait for the counting to be finished in all the stations of that site. After a while we asked for the official form, they couldn't show it. Then we asked when the consolidation of the whole centre was done, no clear answer, not in any of the languages English, French, Kinyarwanda or Kiswahili. Sometime later we were told that the consolidation was secret. Even later we were told it was already done, in all openness, it was 20.30 by then. We find a the most senior person, he tried to explain in perfect English that the consolidation was done in all openness and the papers are locked in a room to be sent the next day. So we had been waiting for a couple of hours for nothing. We tried to explain that we were there all the time and didn't see any reconciliation, let alone in the open. This conversation went in circles; he was afraid for a bad report, and we confirmed we had to put a note in the report.
So after a busy day I went to bed early, an experience richer.
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