The four Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners who disputed the August 9 presidential elections have asked the Supreme Court that the results announced by the commission’s chair were not a declaration of the commission.
Through lawyer Paul Muite and Issa Mansur, Juliana Cherera (vice-chairperson), Irene Masit, Francis Wanderi and Justus Nyang’aya want the Apex court to nullify the said elections.
Muite submitted that four commissioners wanted to be given the opportunity to peruse the results of the 27 constituencies so as to satisfy themselves as to who the winner of the election was and whether that winner had reached the constitutional threshold of 50%+1 votes.
“When that was denied they had no option but to refuse to be party to violation of the Constitution,” Muite said.
According to the commissioners, they urged the Chair Wafula Chebukati to reinstate the public screening of the results which had earlier been halted but he allegedly declined. “This prompted them to leave the premises and disown the election results,” the court heard.
Venezuelan Jose Carmago
IEBC also dismissed claims by Raila Odinga that Venezuelan citizen Jose Camargo interfered with 2022 presidential election results.
Mahat Somane dismissed allegations by Raila’s lawyer Julie Soweto arguing that the name Jose Camargo appeared on IEBC forms as an overlay and the register of the QR code that was printed by Smartmatic was printed in the name of Jose Camargo.
Mahat admitted that the KIEMS kits had the same serial numbers “but we want to tell the court that those KIEMS kits have different identifiers.”
Fred Ngatia who appears for the President Elect William Ruto told the court that the forms that Julie Soweto presented bearing the name Jose Camargo, do not have IEBC security feature and they were meant to deceive and mislead.
