NASA loses in court again

david nganga

July 21, 2017 11:36 AM

Raila's team loses yet another court battle

The National Super Alliance (NASA) has yet again lost another court battle.

The opposition on Friday lost its bid to have polls put off in affected counties, constituencies or wards if the electronic system fails.

Justices Kanyi Kimondo, Hedwig Ong’udi and Alfred Mabeya ruled that the electoral body has adopted regulations to cater for both identification of voters and transmission of results in case the system fails.

Nasa advocates James Orengo and Ben Sihanya had argued that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had failed to put in place a complementary system as required by law.

The Raila-led team had earlier filed a case to stop the IEBC from using a manual backup system in case technology fails during the elections next month.

ALSO READ: IEBC makes new decision after NASA's order

IEBC is using the Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System – a combination of biometric voter registration, the electronic voter identification device and the results transmission system.

Jubilee Party, through lawyers Ahmednasir Abdullahi and Tom Macharia, opposed the Opposition's application.

Following the case dismissal, Nasa was directed to pay the IEBC and the Jubilee Party the costs of the lawsuit. The latter two had supported the commission's defence.

The ruling comes barely a day after the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court judgement that had stopped Dubai-based Al Ghurair from printing presidential ballots.

david nganga