National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential candidate Raila Odinga has reacted to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati’s memo to the commission's CEO, Ezra Chiloba, saying intrigues at the electoral body are proof enough that IEBC rigged August 8 presidential poll.
Chebukati's memo to Chiloba, which is dated September 5, detailed numerous failures by the secretariat that formed the core of his Supreme Court petition that saw the nullification of the presidential poll. The IEBC chair also wants an explanation as to why the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kits used in the election were not locked to specific locations as it had been agreed.
Raila went ahead to list the six ways IEBC mismanaged the August 8 election.
- Posting results early: Raila claimed that some key Jubilee agents started posting results into the IEBC servers a day before the election date.
“Criminals started posting results in the IEBC servers as early as August 7, this our experts found out from the logs given by IEBC to them when the body refused to open the servers,” said Odinga.
- Malpractice: Raila Odinga also said that NASA technology experts were able to discover the malpractice from the logs given to them by the electoral body which the leaked memo revealed.
“This is what we have been saying that nearly 10,000 form 34As were altered in the server using password of IEBC chairman, Wafula Chebukati,” he added.
- Satellite phones were not used: The Opposition leader stated that satellite phones bought by the commission were not used to relay data from polling stations as it was supposed to be.
- Rejected votes: Raila also wondered why 682 polling stations had an equal number of rejected votes vis-à-vis the number of registered voters as addressed in the memo.
- No results from 595 polling stations: He pointed out that 595 Polling stations failed/refused to send any results for the presidential election.
- Unfair competition: The NASA leader accused Jubilee of interfering with the election process saying President Uhuru Kenyatta is not a fair competitor.
NASA had filed a petition challenging President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win in the August 8 poll. The Supreme Court nullified the results and ordered a presidential election to be supervised by IEBC. The Commission set the date for the repeat election for October 17.
