Presidential candidate Reuben Kigame has moved to court seeking to bar the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and its chair Wafula Chebukati from clearing other Presidential candidates.
Kigame also wants the court to bar Chebukati and IEBC from processing the papers for other Presidential candidates for the upcoming general election on 29th August 2022.
Through lawyer John Khaminwa, the petitioner also wants the court to compel the respondents to accept the lists of supporters and other documents in the Presidential Check-list.
“An Order do issue to compel the 1st & 2nd respondents to accept the lists of supporters and other documents in the Presidential check-list for the petitioner pending the hearing and determination of this application for the interest of justice and fairness,” the notice of motion reads.
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The aspirant states that on 23rd May 2022 he attended the pre-nomination meeting by IEBC at the Bomas of Kenya in company of other Presidential candidates, in which meeting the Chairman of the commission gave them an extension of two days to table signatures and ID copies of at least 2,000 voters from majority counties.
“The process of signature collection had begun with the issuance of signature books by the Commission from 5th April 2022,” Kigame argues.
According to Kigame, the aspirants requested for extension and were told as long as they submit the first batch they had collected they could be given an opportunity to top up.
The petitioner claims he tabled the first batch of material on 25th May, 2022 at 5pm at the Bomas of Kenya and were received by two officials of the commission namely Patrick and Ruth.
Signature booklets received by IEBC
The Commission is said to have received and retained signature booklets in relation to three counties.
However, the officials told them they needed to change the format of presentation and submit by the 29th of May, 2022 in excel format.
They prepared the materials from the rest of the counties for submission and drove to Bomas with them on 29th May, 2022 arriving shortly after 1pm.
Reuben Kigame says that shockingly, his materials were not received despite their request that they receive them with the officials of the IEBC confirming that in fact that they had allowed the extension and received their initial materials, but they could not receive the documents unless the returning officer agreed.
For a week, Kigame tried to seek a sit down with Chebukati but in vain since every time he went to Anniversary Towers, he was told that Chebukati was not in despite being kept waiting for many hours each day.
He also avers that his efforts to see Chebukati at Bomas of Kenya while he was meeting other aspirants were futile since the Bomas security were under instructions not to let him in.
At the IEBC offices, Kigame claims he was send from one office to another for hours despite his disability, yet no one would see him.
The aspirant also wants the court to declare that his constitutional rights as enshrined in the Constitution have been violated by the IEBC and Chebukati.
