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Nairobi, Kenya | THE STAR KENYA | IEBC has accused Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Alliance Presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua of producing doctored forms 34A which they are relying on as evidence to nullify the declaration of William Ruto as President-elect.
IEBC and Wafula Chebukati claim the documents are not authentic and the contents were not relied upon in the tallying and verification of the presidential election outcome.
“Only Raila and Martha know the true source of the documents before the court,” read the court documents.
The submissions filed in court by Iseme Kamau and Maema advocates on behalf of IEBC and Chebukati indicate that the documents that have been presented before the court are not the self-carbonating forms 34A given to the agents at the polling stations.
IEBC says the source is accredited as being the public portal yet they differ from the forms that were uploaded and remain available to the public.
“The forms the petitioners have presented before Court to lay the basis of the allegation of fraud should trouble this court as it determines this matter; that a party can approach the apex court with evidentiary material that careful analysis has established to be doctored should be a cause for summary dismissal,” they say.
IEBC and Chebukati submit they went as far as directing the constituency returning officers that delivered the original forms 34A to the national tallying centre to make 4 copies of each of the chief agents of the presidential candidates yet that is not what has been presented before the Supreme court.
The Commission is asking the Supreme court to dismiss the petition saying Raila and Martha have not demonstrated by way of any evidential material that there were serious irregularities that affected the process and outcome of the presidential election.
“We submit that the presidential election held on August 9 cannot by any stretch of imagination be classified as one ‘so badly flawed’ to warrant the nature of intervention proposed by the petitioners.”.
“The commission has said in the event the judges are convinced that there were any irregularities or illegalities that occurred in the process, ‘you will find that those irregularities did not occur deliberately or in bad faith and they would be too insignificant to impact the integrity of the election process and the outcome thereof.”
Raila and Martha have alleged that the election process was manipulated through technology.
They are seeking 23 reliefs, including an order for inspection of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) servers and scrutiny of the rejected and spoilt votes.
The two also had an issue with the procurement process.
The issue was IEBC’s fraudulent procurement of a parallel set of forms 34A and failure to procure requisite forms 34B from Inform Lykos Hellas SA.
Lykos was the company awarded a tender by IEBC for the supply and delivery of ballot papers, register of voters, and statutory election results declaration forms to be used among other things.
But IEBC and Chebukati say the petitioners have not addressed the procurement issue in their submissions.
“No irregularities arose with regards to the tender awarded to inform Lykos at this stage of the election process, that would be sufficient to justify the invalidation of the final presidential elections.”
IEBC has further dismissed allegations of compromise, intrusion or unauthorized access into the system saying the claims are without basis and unsupported by evidence.
IEBC and Chebukati claim that not only have Raila and Karua accused them of heinous criminal offences but have also asked the court to condemn Chebukati by barring him from holding any public office.
The Commission and its Chair say the accusations have been made yet no reliable evidence has been presented alongside the petition to prove the same.
“They have characterized Chebukati as a tyrant who commandeered the election process from the entire commission and manipulated it. This is far from the truth,” says the commission.
According to the court documents, all the commissioners of the IEBC were involved in the verification and announcement of final tallied results from the 290 constituencies at the national tallying centre.
“It’s only after the final tally had been verified that the four commissioners stormed out of the national tallying centre and surprisingly labelled the process, that they had been part of since September 2021 as ‘opaque’,” read the papers.
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