Four IEBC Commissioners have released a comprehensive statement on why they declined to take ownership of the electoral results.
The four, who walked out of Bomas of Kenya, IEBC’s tallying headquarters, before Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced William Ruto as the president-elect, highlighted four concerns they had with the final tallying.
Juliana Cherera, flanked by three of her colleagues; Francis Wanderi, Irene Masit and Justus Nyangaya, first said the aggregation of the percentages of the results were a mathematical absurdity that defied logic.
Led by Chairperson Cherera, the four commissioners pointed out the summation of percentages of votes awarded to each of the four presidential candidates exceeded 100 per cent, which in their opinion, affected the accuracy of the source of the figures tallied.
“Chebukati’s aggregation was as follows; Raila Odinga 48.85%, William Ruto 50.49, Waihiga Mwaure 0.27%, Wajackoyah George 0.44%. The said summation gives us a total of 100.01% the 0.01% translates to approximately 142,000 votes, which will make a significant difference in the final result. We, therefore, declined to take ownership of the said results because the aggregation resulted in a percentage exceeding 100,” Cherrera read in the statement dated August 15.
Interestingly, the press conference coincided with Azimo La Umoja leader Raila Odinga’s first public address since DP William Ruto was declared president-elect.
Cherera said the IEBC chairman paid no attention to the concerns they raised as commissioners who were also kept in the dark towards the final stages of tallying described as ‘opaque’.
When the electoral commissioners demanded to verify the results they said Chebukati declined and insisted on announcing the results.
“When we demanded that we verify our record the chairman declined overruled us and insisted on declaring and announcing the said results.
Cherera then explained the law requires all seven commissioners to approve the final results of a presidential election for it to be credible.
“The chairperson has conducted the election as though he is the national returning officer of a non-extent role and his role in declaring results that were not approved by plenary, by all seven commissioners, renders the result unconstitutional to the extent that this is his own result as opposed to those of IEBC,” Cherera said.
The commissioners said they also dismissed the results since the final tally was announced in the absence of results from certain constituencies.
“In contrary to the constitution by the time the chairman declared and announced the final result, results from certain constituencies had not yet been announced.”
The Electoral commissioners further pointed out that the results did not indicate the total number of registered votes, the total number of votes cast or the number of rejected votes.
“Contrary to the constitution and legislation the results announced did not indicate the total number of registered voters, the total numbers of votes cast or the number of rejected votes.
The commissioners said the results, therefore, lacked a valid ingredient which was the total number of votes cast to support the percentages scored by the four candidates.
“Chebukati claimed Raila Odinga attained 25% of votes in 34 counties while William Ruto attained 25% in 39 counties. The question is which figures in the 34 and 39 counties, respectively constituted the independent variable to warrant the conclusion of 25% in 34 counties and 25% in the 39 counties, for Raila and Ruto respectively.”
“In the absence of a credible and verifiable explanation, we concluded that the process that went into the generation of form 34C which he used to declare the results of the presidential election was opaque and incapable of earning our ownership and confidence.”
“We state categorically the results of the presidential results of August 9, 2022, declared and announced by Chebukati on August 15, 2022, belong to himself and do not represent the declaration and announcement and do not represent the declaration by the independent and electoral boundaries commission. The commission has to process the results before they are declared and announced by the chairperson,” Cherera stated.
