I announced Babu Owino win in spite of errors - IEBC official

Embakasi East MP Babu Owino: He could lose his seat after IEBC admitted vote-counting errors. [File, Standard]

An Electoral Independent and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) official has told the court that he was under pressure to announce election results in Embakasi East, declaring Paul Ongili Babu Owino as the winner and therefore Embakasi Member of Parliament.

Jubilee Party aspirant Francis Mureithi has gone to court to challenge the election. He claims Owino committed an election offence by declaring himself winner before votes were tallied and that the elections were marred with irregularities, intimidation and violence.

Mureithi filed the case seeking the nullification of the win after Owino failed to respond to the petition on time. “Babu obviously committed an election offence by declaring himself the winner. He intimidated the returning officer through death threats," said Mureithi.

IEBC officer testimony

Appearing before Judge Joseph Sargon, Nicholas Kipkorir Butuk, a Returning Officer in charge of the School of Aviation tallying center said despite Owino's impatience at the tallying center, he would still have been announced as the winner in Embakasi East Parliamentary Elections.

Butuk, said his mandate was to receive results from Presiding Officers who were working under him. He added that he was mandated to announce and declare the same results from polling centres and could not make any changes to the results presented to him.

He further told the court that errors were caused as a result of a wrong formula used to determine the final results tally from the different polling centres. “The first two candidates’ results however among those results were never affected and the error could not have flawed or affected the outcome.”

During his testimony, Butuk further added that he was under duress and intimidation from Owino because he had misplaced certificate 35C which he needed to fill and give the winner of the election. He, however, went ahead to declare Owino the winner without the document.

“During the final stage of the tallying process, I realized that form 35c which is used to declare a winner, was missing. I had to look for it first, however, Owino got impatient and went crazy. I was under pressure but I would not have announced different results because he was still the winner from the result we tallied,” he added.

Mureithi also claims that a candidate from the ANC party, Joseph Obiende was attacked at Lower Savannah Soweto Social Hall. Among other election offences.

“Babu was caught on camera bribing voters at Greenspan polling station. The video is in court as evidence, Mureithi told the court in his submission. The politician also gave an example of Utawala Academy where the number of valid votes cast exceeded the number of registered voters.”

The politician wants the entire election nullified and the IEBC ordered to conduct fresh elections.

The hearing of the case continues.