Odinga application to access IEBC servers first order of business Monday

Issa Mansur who is acting for IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati sits in the same row as other advocates/MOSES MUOKI

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 27 – The Supreme Court deferred its ruling on Raila Odinga’s application to be granted access to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s servers, to Monday morning.

The court had initially indicated that it would deliver its ruling on the application on Sunday but Chief Justice David Maraga said they were forced to push it forward given all there was to consider and the numerous other applications they had to dispose of.

“There are quite a number of issues that we were consider. Immediately after the delivery of that ruling, we shall commence the hearing.”

It court will also decide if the petitioners should be granted access to the KIEMS kits used in the August 8 election, as well as the personnel of system providers Safran.

Both the IEBC and President Kenyatta have objected to Raila Odinga’s application to be granted access to the information on the grounds that it not only jeopardises the integrity of the systems but is impractical given the time constraints the court is facing.

They have also accused Raila Odinga of seeking to go on a fishing expedition in a Hail Mary attempt to secure evidence to support his contention that President Kenyatta did not legitimately win re-election.

They have also opposed the access to the ICT systems on the ground that the court should decide the petition on the evidence already before it, not new discovery; making the case that if the information had been critical to Odinga’s petition, they should have made the application prior to the filing of their petition as evidence to support it and before the deadline set by the Constitution to file the petition.

The National Super Alliance had sought access to the servers even before President Kenyatta was declared winner, promising to concede defeat if they found no evidence of tampering with the transmitted election results.

During the pre-trial conference on Saturday, the IEBC made a concession to part of the application, saying it was willing to grant the petitioners access to the original Forms 34 which were the basis of IEBC’s declaration of President Kenyatta as winner of the August 8 election.

About The Author

OLIVE BURROWS

With a decade of storytelling under her belt, Olive Burrows has been with Capital FM for the last four years and perhaps most notably interviewed US President Barack Obama. Committed to asking the hard questions and telling the story in the most engaging way possible, she has also interviewed Melinda Gates, a UK Minister and severally had the opportunity to sit across from President Uhuru Kenyatta and address the pressing issues of the day. Other notables she has had occasion to seek answers from are UN Secretary General António Guterres and John Kerry in his time as US Secretary of State.

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