In Summary
Kenya’s main opposition coalition, the National Super Alliance
(Nasa), has declared that its leader Raila Odinga won the August 8
presidential election. The election was annulled by the country’s
Supreme Court for “illegalities and irregularities.”
Nasa
said it based the assertion on an internal document it said it had
compiled as the tallying of the presidential vote went on. The coalition
said the electoral commission ignored the “authentic” results when it
announced President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner.
According
to Nasa, Mr Odinga garnered 8.1 million votes against President
Kenyatta’s 7.8 million votes. The elections announced by the electoral
commission showed Mr Kenyatta with 8.2 million votes against Mr Odinga’s
6.8 million votes.
Kenya’s Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission (IEBC) immediately released a statement terming
Nasa’s allegations as unfounded.
Nasa said it would go
ahead with the planned swearing in of Mr Odinga and his running mate
Kalonzo Musyoka, scheduled for January 30, as the peoples’ president and
deputy president respectively. Attorney General Githu Muigai has said
that the swearing in could attract treason charges.
The
opposition’s tally showed that Mr Odinga won the majority vote in 26 of
Kenya’s 47 counties, including from prisons and the diaspora, while
President Kenyatta received the majority in 21 counties.
Siaya senator James Orengo said the swearing-in would go on as
planned because the Constitution allows citizens to exercise their
sovereign power directly.
“The results contained in
this document are authentic, unpolluted and unadulterated. It gives
details of the Kiems (Kenya Integrated Election Management System) kits
and their numbers as well as the polling stations,” Mr Orengo said.
Resist strategy
The
swearing in is part of Nasa’s strategy to resist the election of
President Kenyatta. The coalition launched a boycott of products of
companies it said were beneficiaries of the Jubilee government.
Nasa
said the invalidation of the August presidential election by the
Supreme Court does not affect its stance because the judges only sought
to determine the validity of the polls, not its winner.
Chief
Justice David Maraga, in the ruling backed by four judges, said the
IEBC “failed, neglected or refused to conduct the presidential election
in a manner consistent with the dictates of the Constitution.”
The
coalition did not explain how it obtained the document, and instead
challenged the IEBC to open up its servers for verification.
In
the presentations made by Amani National Congress nominated MP Geoffrey
Otsotsi, who is an IT expert, the coalition sought to illustrate how
the voting took place in polling stations, how the results were
transmitted and manipulated, and the people responsible for hacking into
the IEBC system.
Mr Otsotsi said an analysis of the
results transmitted through the Kiems kits showed that manipulation was
done at the servers, with the already configured results reflected on
the IEBC portal.
Passwords used to gain access into the system, said Mr Otsotsi, were of IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati among others.
“An
analysis of the log files indicated that a number of forms from various
polling stations in places like Rongo, Rangwe, Gilgil, Kaimbaa and
several others were deleted,” said Mr Otsotsi.
“Any
government formed in the country under the Constitution must be based on
the principal of the Constitution. Out of that, no government is
recognisable by the people of Kenya,” said Mr Orengo. “We must ensure
that nobody gets power through the back door.”
-Reporting by Silas Apollo.
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