IEBC defends anomalies noted after vote re-tallying

By JUDIE KABERIA | March 29, 2013

Supreme Court judges are expected to issue a ruling on the petition on Saturday. PHOTO/File.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 29 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Friday defended anomalies noted during a re-tallying exercise for 22 constituencies, saying they had been addressed using green books during the March 4 general election.

Lawyer Nani Mungai for the commission told the court that all the discrepancies had been addressed in their earlier submissions and that all the missing Forms 34 had been provided and were readily available on the commission’s website.
“There are proper explanations for the discrepancies seen. As you can see in the re-tallying scrutiny, all forms 34 were used. The vote re-tallying scrutiny confirms the respondents’ position. We addressed discrepancies shown in our submission. On allegations of having more votes than registered voters, we addressed that with the use of green books,” he said.

He further defended the commission saying there was no mischief during the election and that IEBC conducted the elections transparently and within the laws as outlined in the constitution.

He said the commission had already submitted many green books for the court to scrutinise and verify if claims that IEBC doctored results and number of registered votes was true.

“When you look at the scrutiny report and our submission, you realise there was no mischief at all. We have demonstrated that there was no mischief or breach of law. We have provided reasons why the extra person (s) voted using the green book and that does not affect affect all the voters. We have demonstrated that there was no mischief or breach of law. We provided thousands of green books to the scrutiny team,” Mungai argued.

On reports of missing Form 34′s, Mungai said: “We spent two days without sleep with 200 people compiling form 34s trying to check we have each and every one of them. Is there likely to be an omission in that process? Yes. Did we remedy it by trying to bring it or subsequently, yes. So you will find that all of them are there.”

Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s lead lawyer George Oraro however, insisted that the discrepancies had compromised the results announced after the March 4 General Election. He said there were apparent discrepancies discovered during the re-tally of the selected constituencies.

“The re-tallying shows there were additions of 6,139 votes and a subtraction of 12, 530 votes when you tally all the figures. This shows that even after the registers were closed, there were still registrations done. With the discrepancies, we cannot rely on IEBC results. From 25 stations we have 3,347 voters added and 4,639 voters subtracted,” he said.

Africa Centre for Open Governance (AFRICOG) lawyer Kethi Kilonzo also insisted that there were inconsistencies in the re-tally of the 22 constituencies.

“Even if it was one polling station, the chairman could not announce the results without that form in his hand,” she added, “In the 10 constituencies can the court state with certainty what the results were?,” she posed.

Uhuru Kenyatta’s lawyer Fred Ngatia said that although there were errors, they were not that grave to warrant a re-run. The judges’ verdict is expected to be delivered on Saturday.