The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati has said the commission will include the names of former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko and Karungo Wa Thang’wa in the ballot papers.
The two were not gazetted as candidates in the August 9 General Election by the commission as a result of previous impeachment cases, but the courts ordered otherwise.
During a sit-down with the media on Wednesday night, Chebukati said that the commission is running out of time for printing the ballot papers and might not challenge the courts’ orders.
“We (IEBC] must obey and enforce court orders. The court orders must be complied with. We follow the law; we don’t have a choice on that. Remember we must finish printing ballot papers because we don’t have any time left to take action,” Chebukati told journalists.
“We want to finalise the process of printing the ballot papers because it is already running late,”
Chebukati and the commission’s CEO Marjan Hussein were at the Bomas of Kenya, where they addressed the nation on the state of its preparedness.
When interrogated further, Marjan said that the commission’s legal team would look into the verdict from the courts and advice on the way forward. He did not rule out the possibility of not appealing the court orders.
“Whether we will take his papers is the Mombasa Returning Officer’s decision. It is not up to us. Our legal team will give us the best way forward,” Marjan explained.
When asked the role of the commission in verifying academic credentials presented by the candidates for clearance, Marjan says the commission cannot verify the papers.
“If a candidate presents a degree certificate and a letter from the Commission on University Education, then we cannot know whether the papers are legitimate or not. If for instance, EACC writes to bar a certain candidate, then there is nothing we can do,” he said.
Early last month, Deputy President William Ruto claimed that at least one million voters from his stronghold areas had been removed from the IEBC voters register.
When asked for a response to the claims, Chebukati said “We had a meeting with them [presidential candidates] and addressed most of their concerns. I don’t know how Ruto knew one million of his votes were interfered with. The KPMG report came later,”
“The one million voters he was talking about were removed. That is why I challenged anyone with evidence to come forward. There was nothing wrong, he was speaking about transfers. When we realised inconsistencies, we told county election managers, to verify transfer records,” Marjan interjected.
As a result, Chebukati said that five IEBC officials were under investigation by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.
