Kenya Supreme Court orders re-run of poll

‘Irregularities and illegalities’ –

It was the third time in a row that Odinga claimed he had been cheated out of victory at the polls, after his losses in 2007 and 2013.

However, the protests remained isolated and did not reach the levels of the disputed 2007 election which saw politically-motivated ethnic violence in which over 1,100 people were killed.

In 2013, Odinga took his grievances to court and lost.

This time he initially refused to take the case to court but changed his mind, saying NASA wanted the truth to come out even if they believed they had no hope of winning.

However, in a dramatic and unexpected turn of events, the Supreme Court agreed with the opposition coalition.

Maraga said there had been “irregularities and illegalities”, notably in the transmission of election results.

He said this had compromised the “integrity of the entire presidential election”.

The court’s full ruling must be made available within 21 days.

– Election commission vows change –

Odinga said he no longer had faith in the current election commission and called for them to step down.

But IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati refused to resign, saying he had not been implicated in any wrongdoing personally, but vowed “internal changes to our personnel”.

He called for those guilty of wrongdoing to be prosecuted.

NASA official and lawyer, James Orengo, had argued that irregularities — including unsigned and fake tally forms, hacked servers and deliberate miscounting — had affected around one-third of the 15.5 million votes cast.

But lawyers for the election commission and Kenyatta countered that errors were simply “clerical” mistakes and technicalities that did not affect the outcome of the vote.

A report filed by the court registrar found a number of errors in the 41,451 polling station tally sheets — known as form 34A — as well as in 291 of the form 34B constituency tally sheets, some of which were unsigned, not stamped, illegible or lacking serial numbers or watermarks.

In addition, the registrar’s report found that the electoral commission failed to provide full court-ordered access to its servers, which NASA had demanded in order to back up its allegations of hacking.

Kenya Supreme Court Elections Ruling 2017 by The Independent Magazine on Scribd

Nasa Statement on Supreme Court Verdict September 1, 2017 by The Independent Magazine on Scribd

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