Plaintiffs call for Chebukati's head over alleged bungling of presidential poll

Mr Nowrojee said that despite the Supreme Court findings in 2017 that Chebukati presided over a bungled presidential election, he had not reformed but continued his unlawful actions resulting in a result that could not pass the test of credibility.

He claimed that Chebukati is a liar who has been contradicting himself and hoodwinking the public that he conducted a clean election when all evidence shows that he bungled the election and denied Kenyans their choice of leaders.

Raila's chief legal advisor Paul Mwangi submitted that no other chairperson of an independent commission had treated its members as badly as Chebukati.

"It is worth noting that Chebukati has not had any complaints against the commissioners but all the commissioners he has worked with since 2017 have had complaints against him. He cannot impose himself as the super-head of the commission with the support of minority commissioners," said Mr Mwangi.

Lawyer Paul Nyamodi representing the Youth Advocacy Alliance argued that Chebukati was not acting in the interest of the country when he stopped other commissioners from verifying presidential election results and took up the work himself.

Prof Tom Ojienda. [David Gichuru,Standard]

Rogue public officer

Raila and Karua have in their petition claimed that Chebukati is a rogue public officer who committed an act of treason and is not fit to hold any constitutional office. They want the Supreme Court to charge him for violating the Constitution.

Their argument is that although the Supreme Court in 2017 found that the IEBC committed electoral fraud, they spared Chebukati from personal responsibility. That decision, they said, emboldened him to continue committing electoral fraud "which cannot be tolerated this time."

"He set out with willful intent to subvert the will of the people and overthrow the constitutional order, and he must be called out for treason. He is in breach of the authority and trust assigned to his office by bringing dishonour to the country," said the petitioners.

They claim that Chebukati failed to carry out his duties in a way that maintains public confidence, failed to treat the public and his fellow commissioners with courtesy and respect, failed to improve standards of IEBC performance, and failed to observe ethical professionalism.

According to Raila, Chebukati was engaged in conflict of interest when he acted as an agent of the United Democratic Movement through his personal assistant with the commission and subverted the law to illegally declare Dr Ruto as president-elect.

The lawyers claimed that Chebukati had caused IEBC to be dysfunctional, disunited, non-compliant with the law, and to be at loggerheads with the public.

They maintained that Chebukati should take personal responsibility for all the failures of the commission during the presidential election since he took the commission as a "personal belonging to manage in a manner he wished."