Court re-tally shows discrepancies in vote figures
Supreme Court judges led by CJ Willy Mutunga (centre) arrive at the courtroom for the final hearing on presidential election petition proceedings on March 29, 2013. SALATON NJAU
The re-tally of the presidential results in 22 polling stations and the scrutiny of the Form 34’s and Form 36 ordered by the Supreme Court has shown that there were some discrepancies in the figures.
The court had on Monday ordered scrutiny of all the Form 36 and Form 34 and re-tally of results in 22 polling stations.
The report presented to the court shows that there were polling stations with differing votes casts in Form 34 and the corresponding result in Form 36 while missing Form 34 of polling stations in 10 constituencies scrutinised.
“Out of the 22 polling stations, 5 polling stations had discrepancies regarding the number of votes cast as reflected in Form 34 and those reflected in Form 36,” states the report.
The team managed to scrutinise about 18,000 polling stations out of the 33,400 during the two day exercise.
However, commenting on the report electoral agency, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto asked the court to give the discrepancies highlighted less weight.
Nani Mungai representing Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and Katwa Kigen Ruto’s lead counsel said the discrepancies identified have been explained fully in their responses to the petitions.
“Scrutiny confirms some discrepancies, we have responded to those discrepancies in detail in our responses to the petition,” said Mungai. On the missing Form 34, Mungai said all Forms were provided when IEBC was responding to the petitions voluntarily and the in the processes some may have been omitted. He said the fact that petitioners didn’t point out ommsion in their petition means they have been supplied with the copies.
But Kethi Kilonzo for African Centre for Open Governance (Africog) and George Oraro the lead counsel for Raila Odinga told the court the report confirms their position that no verification was done before announcement of the result.
“What we have seen confirm our position that 1st (IEBC) and 2nd (Isaack Hassan) didn’t verify the result as required before declaration,” said Kilonzo.
Form 34 and Form 36 shows the presidential results from polling stations and constituency aggregate respectively.
The five polling stations with discrepancies are Lomerimeri Nursery in Tiaty Constituency Baringo County, Nthambiro Primary school and Kabuito both in Igembe central constituency of Meru County. Other polling stations are Mugomoini primary school in Chuka Igamba Ngombe constituency and NCC social in Langata.
In Lomerimeri Nursery Form 34 shows votes cast as 67 while the entry in Form 36 declared at national tallying centre shows vote cast as 164.
Form 34 of Nthambiro Primary shows vote cast as 465 but Form 36 declared at Bomas show 558. Similarly Kabuito primary Form 34 entry shows vote cast 358 and Form 36 shows 558, a difference of 200.
Mugumoini Primary’s Form 36 shows 378 and Form 34 indicates 74 as votes cast. NCC Social Hall in Langata votes cast in Form 34 is 2694 but entry for vote cast in Form 36 is 3235.
Further the scrutiny revealed that there instances where there are more than one Form 36 for same constituencies and incomplete forms. For instance in Githunguri there are two Form 36 with different numbers of votes cast.
Mungai said the two forms is as a result of errors that was made in initial form by the constituency Returning officers and corrected at national tallying centre but made available for the sake of transparency.
Fred Ngatia appearing for Mr Kenyatta said the discrepancies are spread and seems clerical and does not show any mischief.
He said he suspects the Form 36 used for some of the polling stations with discrepancies on the vote cast was wrong ones. The Judgment will be delivered Saturday.
