PRESIDENT ELECT, UHURU'S DEFENCE TEAM

As the Cord leader moved to court, members of the Jubilee legal team set up an office at Chancery Building on Nairobi’s Valley Road. For the past couple of days, the team has been combing through the IEBC poll results in anticipation of the Cord petition. Sources told the Sunday Nation the team comprises Fred Ngatia, who was Mr. Kenyatta’s chief agent at the Bomas vote tallying centre, and Mohammed Nyaoga, a former partner of Attorney-General Githu Muigai.

 Other members of the Jubilee legal team are Katwa Kigen, Waweru Gatonye, and Tharaka Nithi Senator-elect Kindiki Kithure, his Elgeyo Marakwet counterpart Kipchumba Murkommen, Dr. Stephen Njiru and OL JOROK MP-elect John Waiganjo.

One of them told the Sunday Nation in confidence that they hope to rely on authorities such as the 2000 dispute in the US between presidential candidates Albert ‘Al” Gore and George Bush. The dispute involved the constitutionality of a manual recount of Florida election ballots during the controversial 2000 presidential election. At the end of the Election Day, Bush was ahead of Gore in the Florida popular vote by only 2,000 ballots, close enough to trigger an automatic recount. After the recount, Bush’s lead dwindled to a mere 900 votes. Gore requested a hand-recount of votes in his four strongest counties. After the recount, Bush’s margin dropped to 537 votes. Gore then petitioned the State courts for a recount of 70,000 contested ballots. Although the lower court rejected his request, the Florida Supreme Court reversed on appeal, and ordered the disputed ballots recounted.

Bush and Cheney appealed the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to the US Supreme Court, and were granted a stay on the Florida court’s order until the US Supreme Court issued its decision. The Supreme Court voted in Bush’s favor on a majority of five to four. In his petition, Mr. Odinga said a “curious feature” of the IEBC’s conduct was that it allowed a mobile phone provider to co-host both its server and that of the TNA which compromised the integrity of the electoral process and gave an impression that TNA had access to the commission’s confidential information. He claimed that the voter register was severally altered and made it difficult to tell which one was genuine since IEBC had a total of 14,267,572 registered voters gazette after the end of voter registration only for the figure to increase to 14,352,533 during the elections.

Mr. Odinga said that the electronic results transmission systems adopted by IEBC were poorly selected, designed and implemented and that they were destined to fail from inception and allow manipulation of results. “The failure and collapse of the system on the polling day fundamentally changed the system of polling and the number of votes cast leading to inordinate delays at the polling stations, thereby reverting Kenya to the discredited manual system, with all the attendant risks and opportunities for abuse and manipulation which in fact took place,” said Mr. Odinga. Mr. Odinga argued that the election outcome was so flawed that it is difficult to tell whether the results were the true, lawful and proper expression of the Kenyan people’s will.

He wants the elections nullified on grounds that the conduct of the presidential election was invalid since IEBC failed to carry proper voter registration; presidential elections were not conducted in accordance with Article 81 and 86 of the Constitution and that IEBC failed to transmit results in electronic form before ferrying them to the National Tallying Centre. “IEBC were under obligation to respect, uphold and defend the Constitution. They failed to properly count, tally and verify the votes which clearly show that Mr. Kenyatta garnered less than 50 per cent of the votes,” said Mr. Odinga.

Among the issues he wants determined is whether the commission contravened the Constitution, the IEBC Act and the Elections Act; whether IEBC officials committed an electoral offence and whether Mr. Kenyatta was validly elected as the president. In the event that the Supreme Court upholds the arguments, Mr. Odinga wants IEBC Chairman Issack Hassan held responsible for conducting a flawed process and an order cancelling the certificate issued to Mr. Kenyatta. He also wants the court to order a fresh presidential election and any other relief the judges may deem appropriate. Mr. Odinga said he will demonstrate during the hearing that the IEBC failed to observe constitutional principles of rule of law, democracy, good governance, participation of people, inclusiveness, equality, human rights, integrity, transparency and accountability.

“Concerns over the electoral process started when the procurement for voter materials were marred with fraud. This was expounded by the discrepancies in the voter registration, voting process and tallying of votes which all point to anomalies which can only be cured by the Supreme Court,” said Odinga. He has named the IEBC, the commission’s Chairman Issack Hassan, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as respondents to the petition.

Courtesy of Daily Nation