CORD rejects voters' register audit

They said the KPMG forensic audit was a fraud meant to help President Uhuru Kenyatta win the August 2017 elections.

The IEBC announced earlier yesterday that it had picked audit firm KPMG to begin a forensic audit into the more than 14 million registered voters from Monday next week.

Mr Odinga said KPMG lacks experience to do the audit and their mandate could simply have been to ensure a falsified electorate listing that would aid Jubilee Party rig the elections.

Mr Odinga wondered from which register KPMG was supposed to conduct the audit given the fact that there were several registers in existence at the IEBC.

“I wonder which register they will be auditing. We have heard that there were three to four registers and even themselves did not know which one was genuine. We demand that they stop the process so that we can agree on how to go about it,” said Odinga.

Mr Mudavadi questioned the integrity of the voters’ register. “Kenyans know that IEBC has several registers that were used in the rigging of the 2013 elections. IEBC knows it too. As KPMG is being appointed to audit the register, nobody knows which register is being audited,” he said.

Mr Odinga criticised the Government for recalling the National Assembly for a special sitting next week to pass a series of laws including the amendment of the Election laws that had recently been passed.

“Jubilee has asked for Parliament to be recalled so that they pass laws and change some that were agreed upon by the joint parliamentary select committee. We will oppose them vehemently,” said Odinga.

He said Jubilee has deliberately made several attempts to scuttle the process including delaying it and now they had resolutely decided to change the law instead.

“When both Houses passed the Election laws agreed upon by the joint select committee, Speaker of Parliament took two weeks to present it to the President who also took another two weeks, deliberately delaying the process,” said Odinga.

Election laws

Odinga also said the delays being witnessed in electoral reforms are part of wider ploy by Jubilee and IEBC to rig the elections next year.

“If Jubilee decides to push through the amendments to the laws that were put in place, then they can as well continue with the elections but know that the polls belong to the people of Kenya,” said Odinga alluding to poll boycott by the opposition.

In a blow by blow account of what the opposition sees as a systemic plot to come up with shambolic elections, Mudavadi pointed out that delays had been deliberately perpetuated at every stage of the reforms.

“... Delays were experienced as follows; in the commencement of the Act, in a appointing the panel to reconstitute IEBC, in the assumption of office by the selection panel on grounds that there was no Chief Justice to swear-in members. This has now been capped with a protracted appointment of new commissioners,” said Mudavadi.

Odinga accused IEBC of rushing the procurement of various items, which he says was a deliberate attempt to loot before the commissioners vacate office.

On campaign financing, the Opposition leader said the law needed regulations before it was operationalised given that there were several gaps.

“As we speak, no party has cleared any candidate and what we have are aspirants. The law needs to be regularised to make it clear if it is aspirants or candidate that are supposed open accounts on the campaign financing,” said the former Prime Minister.