2017 Presidential Election: NASA Wants Supreme Judges To Cancel And Order Fresh Round

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the result of the Kenya’s 2017 presidential election held on August 8 2017 and whether it actually reflects the mind of the people or was tampered to please certain people.

The National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his ruing mate Kalonzo Musyoka have raised suspicion over some unfair play and corrupt acts that may have taken place that led to his loss. The two politicians now want the August 8 polls aulled and new elections conducted.

NASA argues that the results of the 2017 Presidential Election were deeply compromised and the errors in the declaration forms are simply irreconcilable. The party also ruled out any attempt to correct the errors that were counted in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta to win a second term after garnering 8,203,290 votes (54.27pc) against Odinga’s 6,762,224 votes.

Odinga and Kalonzo who are the first and second petitioners respectively, hold in an over 25,000-page petition filed at the Supreme Court registry on Friday night, that the General Election was “fatally compromised” calling instead for “legitimate elections” to be held in its place.

“IEBC set out to frustrate the people’s will and deliver a flawed election. The inescapable conclusion is that individual returns, even those appearing to be valid votes, had fundamental irregularities in law.The entire process of tallying, recording, transmitting, verifying and confirmation of results was so fundamentally flawed that you caot talk of any meaningful results,” they asserted.

In the petition in which the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is named as the first respondents, its Chairperson Wafula Chebukati as the second, and Jubilee Party’s Uhuru Kenyatta as the third respondent, NASA claims that 14,000 results declaration forms out of 25,000 it examined were flawed.

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The petition brief also pointed out some of defects they observed including a presiding officer;s name appearing multiple times in different poll stations. According to the brief:

“Some forms show one presiding officer’s name in charge of elections in multiple stations at the same time. There are 443 instances of un-gazetted polling stations, Forms 34A that are filled out in the same handwriting, blank forms, and others that have a polling station, names and details of agents as well as their signatures but are in spaces meant to show results.”

In addition to that, NASA’s claims that the number of votes cast in the presidential poll were more than the number in the elective seats and particularly gubernatorial elections in most of the 47 counties nationwide.

“Votes cast for president (15,588,038) exceeded those for governors (15,098,646) and Members of the National Assembly (15,008,818) by 482,202 and 567,517 ballots respectively.”

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The petitioners also accuse IEBC Chairperson Chebukati of aouncing the result prematurely when in their words, Raila Odinga was yet to receive all the requisite results declaration forms from both polling stations and county tallying centers.

“It has come to pass that by the time of making that declaration, the IEBC was yet to receive 11,883 polling stations results. The IEBC Chairman was yet to receive 17 constituency results, yet he did not qualify his aouncement with the explanation that the difference was not sufficient to change the final outcome,” the two stated.

The statement added that at the time Chebukati declared President Kenyatta as the legitimate wier of the elections on August 11, a total of 5,015 Forms 34A from various polling stations with a cumulative number of 3.5 million votes had not been received at the National Tallying Center in Bomas of Kenya.

The brief also said that the 2017 Presidential Election results transmission system deployed by the IEBC imprecise since it did not includ 11,000 polling stations out of the total 40,883.

“The 2017 presidential election held on August 8, 2017 was so badly conducted and marred with such glaring irregularities that it does not matter who won, or who was declared the wier thereof,” NASA argues.

From these polling stations, NASA argues that results that could cater for 7 million votes were transmitted electronically through text without scaed images of results declaration forms to support them.

They also questioned the set up at the National Tallying Center in Bomas which in their opinion, the alliance, had so many short comings against what is recommended in the Constitution.

“It was not simple, accurate, verifiable, secure, accountable, transparent, open or prompt,” NASA lamented in its statement.

NASA is expected to serve respondents within two days, the respondents expected to reply within four days.

A pre-trial conference is expected to take place eight days after filing the petition, the hearing following immediately thereafter.

The matter is expected to be determined within 14 days of filing, in this case by September