NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 31 – It emerged during the hearing of the Supreme Court presidential petition that the Personal Assistant to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairperson Wafula Chebukati had unauthorized access and “wide powers” in the Result Transmission System (RTS).
Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga told the seven-judge bench of the apex court hearing the petition that Dickson Kwanuzu had unrestricted access to the IEBC systems, yet “he was not gazetted as one of the officials allowed to access it.”
“He was invisible,” Senior Counsel Philip Murgor representing Odinga, submitted.
“While in this dispute we may not see the fingerprints of Chebukati in the ICT system, we see his palm, his much larger presence through the actions of his assistant,” Murgor added.
He stated that Kwanuzu, who was “belatedly granted access and privileges” to the system, performed “a purported verification process of forms 34As 1,743 times.”
Murgor told the court that the case was not isolated as other unofficial persons had direct access to the system whose jobs were solely to manipulate the results in favour of President-Elect William Ruto.
“What we have before the court is a corrupted and compromised results transmission system which violates the provisions of the Constitution,” Murgor said.
According to Murgor, the unauthorized access to its systems gave the individuals sweeping powers to intercept and re-edit the forms 34As from polling stations before later uploading them to the IEBC portal.
He regretted that the “election was controlled from everywhere but not IEBC.”
Whereas IEBC has dismissed claims of its systems being hacked or infiltrated, Odinga submitted before the court that Chebukati himself orchestrated it and manipulated the results in favor of Ruto.
“This demonstrates that the technology deployed by IEBC for the conduct of the polls completely failed the standards of a secure, transparent electronic voting system and thereby yielded unverifiable, inaccurate, and therefore invalid results,” Murgor said.
The issue of the three Venezuelans who were arrested in July with election materials at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) also cropped up during Murgor’s submission, where he submitted that they were part of the team that rigged the system.
Odinga’s lead counsel James Orengo stated that the criminal actions were out of proportion and pleaded with the court to consider all their evidence.
“The orders that we have prayed for are justified, but probably in the future, they may need to be a thorough inquiry as to what happened,” he said.
The former Prime Minister, who unsuccessfully vied for the top seat a fifth time, wants the court to nullify the election.
Odinga insisted that in the event the court grants him the prayers, Chebukati should not be the one to oversee it.
Nullification of the election would send Kenyans back to the polls, which must be conducted within 60 days, with the specific day being November 4, 2022.
If the Judges uphold the election of President-Elect William Ruto, he will be sworn into office on September 13, 2022.
About The Author
