Azimio la Umoja lays out case on how poll body messed up

Lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee. [Collins Kweyu, Standard] Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua laid bare the electoral fraud that they claim denied them victory in the August 9 election. From discrepancies in transmitted results, infiltration of the electoral commission system to disunity at the commission; Raila's legal team had a clear game plan to convince the Supreme Court that the elections were bungled. However, the Supreme Court judges raised a series of questions that the team should reflect on and answer in there responses. Anticipating a crisis, the judges wondered how the country could go to an election should Raila have his way and get Chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Wafula Chebukati kicked out. They also asked why the four dissenting commissioners waited until the last minute to raise the issues they were raising and not when they experienced them. "If a fresh election is to be ordered to be done now, yet one of the reliefs is that we find the chair unfit to hold public office, how is that possible since the constitution does not contemplate such a lacuna?" Justice Mohamed Ibrahim posited. Raila's rallying call that Deputy President William Ruto was not validly declared as president-elect was led by Senior Counsel James Orengo. Orengo, who was recently elected Siaya governor, summed up their submissions stating that what happened at the national tallying centre was a crime that should not go unpunished. "What happened is not just a conspiracy theory or any other ordinary event. What happened marked a pattern of constitutional violation to undermine people's authority and in the future, there should be an inquiry into the criminal activities that took place during the election," said Orengo. From the nine issues framed by the Supreme Court for determination, Raila's legal team divided themselves to address each question while backed up with evidence to prove the presidential election was a sham. Orengo began the onslaught by arguing that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission repeated the same mistake it did in 2017 by conducting an election which was not free, fair, accurate and accountable. According to the senior counsel, the divided and dysfunctional commission made it impossible for any Kenyan to believe that the final declaration of Ruto as president-elect came out of a credible process. "Indeed the tower of Babel that is IEBC has been brought down before the Supreme Court by the two warring factions, which make it impossible to believe that there was any credible and accurate presidential election," said Orengo. Lawyers James Orengo and Philip Murgor at the Supreme Court on August 31, 2022. [Collins Kweyu, Standard] The senior counsel led his team in submitting the issue of whether Dr Ruto garnered 50 per cent plus one vote for which he said their tabulation based on the declared results showed he did not attain the constitutional threshold to be declared president-elect. Orengo submitted that the votes Ruto got, 7,176,141, did not equate to 50.49 per cent as declared by IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati since he based the calculation on a wrong voter turnout. According to Orengo, Chebukati gave conflicting figures on the correct voter turnout and if they go with his last announcement that the turnout was 65.4 per cent then the correct number should be 14,456,729 which means more than 230,000 votes were unaccounted for. Reducing Raila's votes He passed the baton to lawyer Julie Soweto who explained to the court how Forms 34A were altered at the polling station by reducing Raila's votes and adding them to Ruto's tally. Soweto relied on the evidence of their expert witnesses who discovered 180,000 votes cast in favour of Raila were illegally deducted and some added to Ruto's tally while others could not be explained. "We sampled forms 34A from 41 polling stations in Kiambu, Bomet and Kakamega, which proved that Raila's votes were deducted and added to Ruto and in the process he lost 2,793 votes in those 41 stations alone," said Soweto. She alleged that IEBC illegally procured two sets of forms 34A that were used to alter the results and that the results, which were displayed in the public portal did not correspond with those counted at the polling stations. Lawyer Julie Soweto. [Collins Kweyu, Standard] "The systematic deduction of Raila's votes continued across other polling station in which a total of 4,663 votes were deducted from his tally in 25 polling stations in Baringo and 15 in Nairobi which were added to Ruto," said Soweto. Soweto also dwelt on the issue on whether the postponement of the election in Kakamega, Mombasa and four other constituencies affected the presidential election stating that they were deliberately done to suppress Raila's votes in his strongholds. "It was not a coincidence that the electronic voting system also failed only in Raila's strongholds. The effect was the voters were suppressed and failed to vote as evidenced in the different voter turnout in their neighbouring counties, which had a higher turnout," said Soweto. On the discrepancies between the total votes cast for the presidency and other elective seats, Soweto told the court that there were a total of 33,208 votes which could not be accounted for especially in areas perceived to be Ruto's stronghold. "We have discovered that there were an average of 3 votes per polling station across the country which were added to the presidential votes which translate to over 180,000 unaccounted votes for the presidential election," said Soweto. Lawyer Paul Mwangi explained to the court that the IEBC did not carry out the tallying, verification and transmission of the results in accordance with the law. He said there was no basis for Chebukati to assume all the roles in exclusion of other commissioners when his role was only to declare the results. "Even in a football match, we cannot leave some critical decision to one referee. That is why we have a video assistant referee. The chairman could not make those critical decisions on verification and tallying of results alone," said Mwangi.

Azimio la Umoja lays out case on how poll body messed up

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