The Independent Electoral and Boundaries (IEBC) has no intention of making public the results of the March 4 general elections.
The Star has established that the IEBC has decided to push the public of the results sometimes after September, seven months after the elections were held.
We established that the commission has been unable to reconcile their figures which is the main reason for the delay.
This means that IEBC will only publish the complete results of the 2013 elections after the determinations of all pending election petitions.
Multiple sources at the IEBC said the commission had decided to delay the release of the results to pre-empt a situation where petitioners could take advantage of the results to prosecute their petitioners.
This decision was arrived after it “became obvious” that the figures declared by the IEBC of the total votes cast were overstated.
“Either these or any other reason for providing wrong results if proved can throw the whole tallying of results into question,” said one of the commissioner's who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
He indicated that there was division among the commissioners with some preferring that the results be published immediately while others are in support of the delay.
Some of the commissioners are also critical of the manner in which the commission released the election results and believe it should have "exercised due diligence" to avoid the current situation where the integrity of the institution is being called into question.
The public was treated to the divisions in the commission when commissioner Mohammed Alawi openly contradicted his chairman Isaack Hassan over when the election results will be published.
Alawi, who was speaking during a Citizen TV talk show last Monday, defended the commission's decision to annul Kethi Kilonzo's nomination certificate for the Makueni Senatorial seat. He said the IEBC had complied with every provision of the law in relation to the publication of the results.
“We have published everything and as far as we are concerned there is nothing more published,” he said.
However, Hassan had two weeks ago promised the commission would soon publish the final results. Hassan made the promise when officially opening the African Union national bridge capacity workshop for IEBC staff held in Naivasha.
“I confirm that we will release the official results of all elective positions from the presidency to county ward representatives this week,” Issack said during the June 24 function.
But one of the commissioner said it will not be easy for the IEBC to publish the results, if at all. “If it has to publish the results then the earliest it can do that is September or afterwards,” he said.
The legal and financial consequences of “this gap” has forced the commission to delay the publication of the results until the fate of all the petitions is known.
At least 180 elections petitions have been filed in the courts after the last general elections held on March 4. The law limits the determination of such cases to six months after a general election. This means the cases must be concluded by the end of September in line with the law that require the election petitions be concluded within six months.
IEBC is wary of the legal and financial implications of these petitions should its published results be at variance with what was declared during the announcement of the official results in March.
The commission should have published complete results of the elections two weeks after the announcement of final results as stipulated in the law.
The commission has been toying with three sets of figures of the total votes cast during the March 4 poll.
According the commissioner, none of the three figures is adding up and several of his colleagues have refused to append their signatures to the results fearing a backlash from the public.
Of the three figures, the first shows total votes cast on March 4 to be 11, 578, 674, the second figures suggests that 12, 338, 667 which was the final figure given by the chairman when he declared Uhuru the winner of the presidential elections while the third figure is 12, 221, 053.
They are concerned that should the compete results be wrong, then serious questions will be raised about the whole tallying process.
“All the three figures show clearly that the total votes cast was seriously overstated,” said the commissioner.
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