Presidential poll re-tally underway

By Pamela Chepkemei

NAIROBI, KENYA: The re-tallying of presidential votes from 22 polling stations as directed by the Supreme Court has commenced in Nairobi.

The exercise will also involve auditing of all the Forms 36 used by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in aggregating tallies from Forms 34.

On Monday, the court read out 22 polling stations in which re-tallying of presidential votes shall be conducted using the Forms 34 and 36.

Judiciary officials are conducting the exercise, but representatives from Independent electoral Commission (IEBC) and agents of the petitioners in the case are present at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) venue.

The petitioners in the three consolidated petitions are required to jointly appoint ten agents as observers in the scrutiny exercise while all the four respondents shall also jointly appoint a similar number. Before commencing the re-tally, the agents took an oath of secrecy administered by the Registrar.

The swearing happened behind closed doors at the KICC early Tuesday morning. There is a heavy security presence at the KICC and journalists have also been barred from accessing the tallying venue.

The re-tallying was ordered by the Supreme Court on Monday to establish if votes cast exceeded the number of registered voters in those areas as claimed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the petition at the Supreme Court

“That scrutiny shall aim at establishing the number of registered voters, the votes cast and the votes rejected,” the court said in a directive read by Justice Smokin Wanjala.

Further the court shall scrutinise all the Forms 36 used by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in aggregating tallies from Forms 34. This would help in establishing the accuracy or inaccuracy of the process and comparing the number of registered voters on Form 34 and those on principal register.

The results of the scrutiny exercise will be filed at the court registry.