“Party/candidate agents and independent observers are to observe the ICT infrastructure including servers, databases, and logs with appropriate security mechanisms in place,” reads a September 22 letter/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 26 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) intends to establish a framework within which presidential agents and observers will be allowed a read-only access to its Results Transmission System (RTS) during the October 26 fresh presidential election.
In its response to a letter by the National Super Alliance (NASA) demanding some 12 ‘irreducible minimums’ before the fresh poll, the Commission pledged transparency while assuring that agents representing the two contenders in the election – President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA’s Raila Odinga – will be allowed to review the RTS command history under the supervision of an IEBC appointed official.
“Party/candidate agents and independent observers are to observe the ICT infrastructure including servers, databases, and logs with appropriate security mechanisms in place,” reads a September 22 letter addressed to NASA Executive Director Norman Magaya and the Jubilee Party.
According to the document, the Commission has also reviewed its results management framework in which all the primary results declarations forms (Forms 34A) will be verified against Constituency tallies in Forms 34B before the declaration of a winner.
Unlike in the August 8 election where IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati enumerated votes accrued by each candidate in 47 counties, he will announce results of each constituency upon verification of statutory forms under the new arrangement.
The Commission on Monday also wrote to NASA asking them to put off their planned demonstrations demanding the resignation of some of its officials including Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba asking the alliance to give dialogue a chance.
IEBC disclosed that it had received a proposal from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in which the agency plans to help in the procurement of ballot papers, a proposal the Commission said had been submitted to the National Treasury for advice.
The Cabinet has already allocated Sh10 billion in a supplementary budget to finance the fresh election.
In its September 22 letter to NASA and Jubilee, IEBC however made it clear that it would source for ballot papers through the Dubai-based printer Al Ghurair with which it has a two-year agreement.
The Commission also intends to retain services of a French technology company OT Morpho given the limited time within which it has to conduct the fresh presidential election ordered by the Supreme Court when it annulled last month’s presidential election on September 1.
The NASA has however reiterated its stance on the omission of Al Ghurair and Morpho in the arrangement of the fresh poll even as it introduced a new twist in its demands now calling for exemption of Safaricom from the management of the presidential election.
Reacting to IEBC’s letter that the telecommunications provider will be contracted to provide SIM Cards for all the 40,883 Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kits, Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula and NASA co-principal accused Morpho and Safaricom of colluding to bungle the August 8 presidential election.
“The two firms are IEBC’s partners in crimes and we’re going to give you details of the acts and omissions of Safaricom that substantially contributed to the mess in which our elections ended up,” Wetangula remarked during a press conference at NASA campaign secretariat in Nairobi.
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