By Our Reporter
WORLD NEWS
Raila Odinga and Martha Wangari Karua yesterday lodged their election petition challenging the results declared by the Chair of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Wafula Wanyonyi Chebukati.
Chebukati pronounced William Ruto winner of the closely fought race with 7,176,141 votes against Raila’s 6942,930 votes.
In the petition filed yesterday 22nd August 2022, the Azimio la Umoja team points out the following issues.
Even with the many irregularities, alteration of results, Odinga Team insists that the results attributed to Ruto do not add up to 50% plus 1.
“Based on the scientific and verifiable arithmetic calculations of Dr. Edgar Otumba, it is evident that the 9th Respondent did not garner 50% plus 1 of the total valid votes cast.” The Team shows its calculations as seen below;
Given that the Total Votes cast was 14, 466,779.5 and Total Valid Votes cast was 14,353,165.53, the 50% of Valid Votes cast should be 7,176,582.77.
However, the Odinga Team points to the fact that Chebukati announced 7,176,141 for William Ruto falling short by 233,652.766 to make the 50% mark.
Unlike the previous petition where the court did not hold the IEBC Chair personally culpable, this time around Chebukati must be made to pay for his treasonous actions, the Odinga team insists.
“In 2017, this court was shy to, and spared the 2nd respondent herein who was also Chairperson of IEBC then, from direct responsibility and culpability for the bungled and impugned election,” Odinga’s petition reads before arguing that this time, Chebukati must be held personally liable.
Odinga also avers that Chebukati announced the ‘Final’ presidential results without tallying results from 27 constituencies. He names athe constituencies as Mvita, Matuga, Kilifi North, Bura Fafi and Wajir North.
Others are Eldas, Mandera West, Tigania East, Mbeere North, Ndaragua, Kapenguria and Kacheliba.
The team also names Narok South, Narok North, Narok West, Kajiado East, Kandunyi, Nyakach, Rangwe, Ndhiwa, Suba North, Kuria East, Bomachoge, Borabu, Kitutu Chahche North and West Mugirango.
Odinga contends that Chebukati therefore had no right to claim to declare final results and yet ‘the tally and count in the aforesaid 27 constituencies would have affected the outcome of the presidential election.’
He further points to the fact his votes were subtracted and added to his opponent’s. To prove this point, the Odinga team has presented a random sample of 41 polling stations from Bomet and Kiambu Counties.
According to evidence presented to court, the votes recorded for the 1st Petitioner (Odinga) and the 9th Respondent (Ruto) in the physical copies of Forms 34A issued to Odinga’s Agents at the polling stations above, differ from the Forms 34A in the IEBC portal.
It is also proof that there was criminal tampering or interference/manipulation of the electronically transmitted results.
Odinga claims that the electronic conveyance of results was deliberately hacked into and results manipulated with the full knowledge of Chebukati. He cites the 3 Venezuelan nationals who were arrested in possession of sensitive IEBC materials and access passwords. The Venezuelans are named as Salvador Javier Sosa Suarez, Jose Grecorio Camarigo Castellanos and Joel Gustavo Rodriguez Garcia. The trio was arrested while attempting to enter Kenya on the 21st July 2022.
The Petitioner has also alleged that with the full knowledge of Chebukati, a system called ‘Staging’ was adopted to enable the alteration of electronically submitted results before they were uploaded into the IEBC portal.
HOW THE SYSTEM WORKED
When the genuine results were electronically submitted, the Forms 34A were temporarily stored in an external address not belonging to IEBC where the Ruto team accessed them, manipulated and then re-uploaded to the IEBC portal.
To prove this point, the Raila Team has alluded to Ruto’s Agent whose laptop was confiscated inside Bomas on the vote tallying day. According to Odinga, the laptop belonging to Koech Geoffrey Kipngosos was connected to the IP http://173.249.40.177/, which was an external IP address that was not belonging to IEBC but was where Forms 34A were being stored temporarily, downloaded and then re-uploaded to the IEBC portal through an application for sharing data called Sharepoint.
Then of course, the Team accuses Chebukati of declaring the results that had had been disowned by the majority of the IEBC Commissioners calling it unconstitutional and therefore a nullity.
