Raila launches three-pronged attack on Uhuru win

Opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka on Monday opened their petition before the Supreme Court in a three-pronged attack on the integrity of the August 8 election.

This included alleged manipulation of result forms and ICT system, violation of election procedures and breach of electoral laws.

Lawyers James Orengo, Otiende Amollo, Okong’o Omogeni, Mutakha Kangu, Anthony Oluoch and Paul Mwangi for Mr Odinga cited three main grievances in a five-hour submission before the Supreme Court on Monday as they awaited the outcome of an audit of IEBC’s ICT systems Tuesday afternoon.

The lawyers made their case after the Supreme Court granted the petitioners’ request to scrutinise the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s servers under supervision of the court.

Mr Orengo told the Supreme Court judges that some of the result transmission forms the IEBC supplied to Mr Odinga after the elections lacked key security features, putting to doubt their validity.

“Nearly all the forms we were supplied with are not standardised. They differ from constituency to constituency and there are others like Mathira Constituency where the heading is written by hand,” Mr Orengo argued.

As we went to press IEBC was still making its submissions before the Supreme Court. President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to finish making his response on Tuesday.

Mr Amollo, who is also the Rarieda MP-elect, said IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati failed to read out the number of rejected votes when announcing President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner.

But in the copy of Form 34C he gave Mr Kenyatta upon declaring him the winner, the number is indicated as 81,685 as opposed to the 401,003 that the IEBC had displayed in the public portal.

On the day Mr Chebukati declared Mr Kenyatta the winner of the election, the IEBC’s public portal indicated that the number of rejected votes stood at 403,805.

Mr Amollo told Supreme Court judges that results were manipulated using what the IEBC described as “an error adjustment formula”.

“Using that formula (y=1.2045 x + 183546) and analysing results from when it started streaming to the end, it gives a very clear straight line, which is a statistical impossibility,” Mr Otiende said.

READ: Nasa claims math formula behind Uhuru win at polls

Mr Omogeni cited election procedure violations that the IEBC chose to overlook.

He accused three Cabinet secretaries—Eugene Wamalwa (Water), Mwangi Kiunjuri (Devolution) and Joe Mucheru (ICT) of campaigning for Mr Kenyatta and even intimidating voters in violation of the law.

Mr Mwangi argued that unlike 2013, changes to election laws had made it mandatory for the IEBC to use technology in the election process even as he denied IEBC’s claims that there were some technical hitches during the August 8 General Election, and that the polls body was using the alleged hitches to hide irregularities.

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He also asked the Supreme Court to lower the evidence threshold, arguing that election petitions are civil matters that do not have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, as is the case with criminal matters.

In his submissions, Dr Kangu said Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka had approached the Supreme Court to protect Kenya’s sovereignty, which has come under threat following irregularities in the August 8 elections.

Mr Oluoch, on his part, held that former IEBC ICT director Christopher Msando had warned of the alleged manipulation prior to his murder just weeks to the General Election.

He added that current IEBC ICT director James Muhati had been suspended in May for attempting to sabotage an audit of the polls body’s audit but was reinstated after Mr Msando’s death, which may have been done to help bungle the August 8 General Election.