Judges hear to submissions on KIEMs kits and electoral forms

President Uhuru Kenyatta Photo:Courtesy

Kenyans will on Monday know whether President Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn in for a second term or they will go to another election.

Parties involved in an election petition at the Supreme Court made their final submissions in a bid to convince the six-judge bench that their case was water-tight.

 The last issue to be argued was about the Kenya Election Integrated management System (KIEMS) kits and forms used in the October 26, election.

Khelef Khalifa and Njonjo Mue in their final rebuttal told the court they discovered there were KIEMS kits which were opened in 2009.

According to Khelef and Mue, other kits - 86 in total - were allegedly opened between September and the Election Day.

“The scrutiny confirms the illegalities and irregularities and anomalies,” the judges heard.

But IEBC shot back through lawyer Mahat Semane who said: “You have been told that in folder 18 there were KIEMS that were used in 2009, the kits were used in 2017. They were used for the first time this year."

On the forms, the two petitioners claimed there were forms that had visible alterations by either the returning officers or the presiding officers.

The judges also heard there were forms whose figures were exaggerated and others did not have hand-over notes. 

Lawyer Harun Ndubi, for the two petitioners, told the court there was no cure to the October 26 election other than ordering a fresh election.

He said the withdrawal of the National Super Alliance (NASA) candidate plus the anomalies that they found justified their case that President Uhuru Kenyatta was not validly elected.

According to the petitioners, it was possible for the IEBC to postpone the election to another date until the issues raised by the Opposition were met.

They claimed there would be divisions if the court would not uphold that the election was a sham. “The election was a national presidential election and not a presidential by-election,” lawyer Julie Soweto, also for the petitioners, argued.