Raila’s chief campaigner to file poll petition

By Wahome Thuku and Lucianne Limo

Nairobi, Kenya: Prime Minister Raila Odinga has picked his chief campaigner to wage the court battle on his behalf against the election of President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mr Eliud Owallo, one of Raila’s right hand men, will file the awaited election petition.

He will be the face of the petition filed by the CORD Alliance, strategically shifting the focus from Raila.

And it emerged on Tuesday that CORD would conduct a full audit of the presidential election to form the basis of their case.

Without singling out specific areas, they want the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to provide them with key documents and electronic evidence from all polling stations.

These include all form 34, 35 and 36 from the more than 33,000 polling stations and constituencies, serial number of electronic devices used as well as provisional and final registers of all registered voters.

Form 34 is a declaration of presidential election results signed by the presiding officer and election agents.

Form 35 details results for five other elective seats, detailing total number of registered voters at the polling station, valid votes cast, number cast in favour of each candidate, rejected and disputed votes.

Form 36 is an aggregate of all results at the county tallying level. CORD intends to pinpoint discrepancies between what was manually recorded in the polling stations and what was transmitted to the tallying centre or announced by IEBC commissioners.

Their strategy is to trace the entire process from registration of voters, actual numbers of those who voted and how the results were handled from one point to another before being released to the public.

That could form the basis for requiring the court to declare the entire election invalid in which case all the eight presidential candidates would go back to the ballot for a fresh election.

Legal minds

But Owallo, a voter in Nairobi, will have no major role to play in proving these allegations other than append signatures on court papers and affidavits.

He will simply sit in the Supreme Court benches, as a team of top legal minds hired by CORD battle it out with heavyweights expected to be instructed by the IEBC and other interested parties.

Using Owallo will ensure while Raila’s interests are catered, for his name does not feature prominently in the paperwork. This shifts the focus to Owallo rather than making it a direct legal confrontation between the PM and the IEBC.

The implications are should CORD lose the petition, Raila would not face public embarrassment which could extend to other suits and demands for costs of the case especially by other parties.

The intended petitioner made the first move on Tuesday when he filed a separate petition at the High Court in Nairobi, to have the IEBC and mobile phone provider Safaricom compelled to release vital documents and evidence on the just concluded presidential elections.

The case was immediately certified urgent by Justice Isaac Lenaola and will be heard this morning after the IEBC has been served with the papers.

“The petitioner intends to file a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the results of the just concluded presidential election to safeguard his rights from infringement,” said his lawyer Okome Arwa.

From documents lodged at Milimani courts, it appeared that even before the winner had been announced by IEBC, CORD had identified Mr Owallo as the man to challenge the results.

He wrote two letters, one to IEBC chairman Issack Hassan and the other to Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore on Friday, March 8, a day before Uhuru was declared winner on March 9.

The letter by his lawyers to Mr Hassan reads in part: “Looking at the results that are now being projected on the screens at Bomas Tallying Centre he (Owallo) is convinced the outcome of the General Election has been fraudulently manipulated and his right has been infringed or are threatened with infringement”.

Owallo is represented by Rachier and Amolo Advocates who been listed among the lawyers working on the CORD petition.

CORD is demanding every document and electronic evidence that could help prove the presidential elections were a sham, right from identification of voters at the polling stations to the transmission of results to the tallying centre at Bomas.

They want all form 34, 35 and 36 which are the basic documents where presiding officers record results at the polling stations.

They also want all the results declared electronically at Bomas and the log files for all short messages (SMS) received from Safaricom.

Signed contracts

They are also demanding all the contracts signed between IEBC and other companies for provision of software that were used in transmission and tallying of results.

From both IEBC and Safaricom, the alliance is demanding serial numbers of all hand held transmission equipment such as mobile phones bought for use in the polls and those actually configured and used by the electoral officials and those not used as well as the constituencies where they were required to have been used.

The petitioner appeared intent on proving that the breakdown in the electronic tallying occurred due to foreseen circumstances or manipulation of the devices.

Owallo claims the results being streamed at the tallying centre before the electronic system failed and those announced after were fraudulently manipulated.

He is asking for serial numbers of transmission devices, whose security passwords they say were subsequently changed, the reason for the change and the constituencies where they were intended to be used.

He wants the serial numbers of all BVR machines that failed to work, including the reasons for failure and polling stations and streams where they were to be used.

The alliance is also seeking the numbers of the transmission devices from Safaricom and print out of all messages sent through the devices used in electronic transfer of data from polling stations.

Further, they want all the contracts signed between the IEBC and Safaricom in relation to the General Election. This will enable them to get evidence on the extent of the mandate and the role of the mobile phone company in the conduct of the polls.

The petition was declared urgent on the basis that the information was needed for filing a petition that has a seven-day timeline.

The case was different from the actual petition, which can only be filed at the Supreme Court. This case went to the High Court because it was to have the IEBC and Safaricom compelled to produces that information.