Judge orders Kieni MP to respond to bid for election results scrutiny

The High Court in Nyeri has ordered the electoral agency and new Kieni MP Anthony Wainaina to reply to a request by a voter and a chief agent allied to former MP Kanini Kega seeking the August election results to be scrutinised.

Justice Dora Chepkwony on Monday gave the respondents until October 28 to respond to chief agent James Maina and voter Geoffrey Wahome requests to access the Kiems kits of all the constituency’s polling stations, their diaries and the register of voters transferred to Kieni from August 2021 to July 2022.

The judge issued the directive after the petitioners’ lawyer, Ndegwa Njiru, said the matter could not proceed for pretrial hearing because the interlocutory application, which is meant to help with their preparation for the case, had not been heard by the court.

In the document filed in court on October 12, the petitioners said they wanted all Kiems kits and their logins, explaining that they feared the devices would be interfered with because they are subject to reformatting for use in future elections.

“It is in the interest of justice that the petitioners be allowed access to the kits for the sole purpose of making copies of the information which is relevant for the just determination of this petition,” says lawyer Njiru in court papers.

Besides the logins used to upload election results onto the portal, they also requested the corrections made on the system and the details of the users who made them.

The petitioners say Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) documents filed in court reveal massive irregularities and should be scrutinised.

For instance, they cite eight polling stations that saw numerous cancellations and alterations of results without the required countersigning by IEBC officials.

They also say there were errors in the tabulation of results in four other polling stations and unexplained discrepancies in the number of registered voters for the presidential and National Assembly as a result of vote stuffing in five others.

“In other instances, IEBC officials and various party agents have failed to sign or have different signatures as seen in forms 34A and 35A of CCM Nanyuki Primary School polling station stream 3 of 3 where the deputy presiding officer’s signatures do not match,” the documents say.

Lawyer Njiru said the results displayed on the IEBC portal are different from the results announced.

The total votes cast for the MP’s seat, he said, have a high unexplained variance compared with those of the President and woman representative.

As a result, he wants certified copies of forms 35A, 35B and 32. He also wants the stations’ diaries and voters’ registers, while accusing Mr Wainaina of paying Nyeri voters to transfer their votes to Kieni constituency before the elections.

Responding to the petitioners’ application in court on Monday, lawyers Joseph Mwangi and Muhoho Gichimu, who are representing the IEBC and Mr Wainaina, respectively, requested to be given time to respond to the request.

Lawyer Muhoho told the court that he was only served with the application on Monday morning, before the court session and had not yet gone through it.

“We shall need at least three days to look into the petitioners’ concerns in the application and reply to them after consulting with our clients,” he said.

Justice Chepkwony ordered the petitioners to file more affidavits supporting the application by October 25.

“This will therefore leave IEBC and the new Kieni MP (respondents) with three days to file their responses before the matter is next heard before the court on October 31,” the judge ruled.