Cord protests over petition papers

Cord senators-elect Amos Wako (right), James Orengo and Mutula Kilonzo (left) at a press conference in Nairobi on March 14, 2013. They said their coalition would file its election petition on Friday. Photo/STEPHEN MUDIARI  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By NATION TEAM newsdesk@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, March 14  2013 at  22:30

The electoral commission has been unable to produce the final voters’ register used in the March 4 polls, the Cord team that has disputed the presidential election results said on Thursday. Read (IEBC, Cord ordered to agree on documents)

Former AG Amos Wako, who is one of the lawyers in the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) legal team, questioned the preparedness of the commission to handle the elections “without a credible voter register”.

Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga has rejected the declaration of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta of Jubilee Coalition as winner of the presidential election.

According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Mr Kenyatta got 6.1 million votes against Mr Odinga’s 5.3 million.

On Wednesday, Cord had gone to court seeking to compel IEBC and Safaricom to provide it with documents it needs to file its election petition. IEBC agreed to provide some of the documents.

But Cord leaders said they were yet to get all the documents they needed.

The Nation established that the Cord team had received crucial information from Safaricom which lawyers were using to analyse the results released by the IEBC.

However, Cord senator-elect Johnstone Muthama accused IEBC of frustrating their quest for information that could facilitate the election petition.

But IEBC deputy secretary Betty Nyabuto said the documents were public and that Cord had not been denied access.

On Thursday evening, the commission said it had uploaded them on the Internet.

“The over 33,000 form 34s requested by Cord and used to tally presidential results in the General Election are posted in the IEBC website for all Kenyans to see,” a short text message from the commission said.

Cord is yet to file its petition at the Supreme Court but is likely to do so on Friday.

Already, three people have filed a petition at the Supreme Court seeking a determination on the validity of the rejected votes tallied in the presidential election.

Mr Moses Kuria, Mr Denis Itumbi of Team Uhuru, one of the team that drove the Jubilee presidential campaign and Ms Florence Sergon argue that in calculating the percentage attributable to each presidential candidate, the electoral commission erroneously used a formula that included rejected votes as a basis of calculating total percentages.

The petitioners claim that the erroneous decision diminished each of the eight candidates’ percentage of votes.

They are seeking a declaration that the percentage of votes received by each candidate should be in proportion to the total valid votes cast.

On Wednesday, Mr Odinga challenged Mr Kenyatta to state whether he would accept the verdict of the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, TNA vice-chairperson Lydiah Mokaya told a press conference in Nairobi’s Red Cross House that the party would accept the Supreme Court’s decision on the election petition that Cord intended to file.

At another event, Mr Kenyatta pledged to abide by the ruling but said he would not stop working on realising his coalition’s election programme.

He and Deputy President-elect William Ruto said they had started to implement the plans laid out in the Jubilee manifesto.

Speaking to women leaders at KICC, Mr Kenyatta struck a conciliatory note as he reached out to all Kenyans to work with his government.

“The judicial process proceeds and the Jubilee government continues to prepare to build this nation, because that we must do on the basis of our promise,” he said.

Mr Wako, at a press conference at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi, criticised the transitional processes Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were engaging in before being sworn in.

“I have never seen law enforcement agents going to see the President-elect before the swearing in like we saw this week,” Mr Wako said.

Mr Orengo, who was also at the press conference, criticised IEBC chairman Issack Hassan for being inaccessible.

“This is the most opaque commission Kenya has ever had. In fact it is rating far much below the ECK under Samuel Kivuitu,” he said.

Earlier, while addressing women leaders together with Mr Kenyatta, Mr Ruto said: “Kenyans went to the polls on the 4th of March and they made a decision. They spoke and they spoke loudly and clearly.”

He said the coalition not only got six million votes — 800,000 more than Cord — but a majority in the National Assembly, Senate and Women’s Representatives seats.

With the electoral commission yet to publish an official list of the winners, it was difficult to verify this claim with any certainty.

Reports by Isaac Ongiri, Paul Ogemba, Benjamin Muindi and John Ngirachu