Kenya’s opposition says Raila won August poll
Saturday January 27 2018
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.