IEBC commissioner Juliana Cherera answers Wafula Chebukati allegations on forcing a re-run

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Vice Chairperson Juliana Cherera has led three other commissioners in an onslaught against Wafula Chebukati and responded to his allegations that the quartet tried to deny President-elect William Ruto outright victory by trying to force a runoff.

The four IEBC commissioners - Cherera, Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyangaya, and Irene Masit - dismissed Chebukati’s claims and raised pertinent issues on how the IEBC chairman acted in regard to the just-concluded August 9 polls.

The commissioners noted that Chebukati misunderstood their statements and declined to verify the results which he went ahead and used to declare William Ruto as the president-elect.

They maintained that Chebukati acted unilaterally and unconstitutionally, noting that he wanted to subvert the will of the people by presiding over an opaque process whose results the commission cannot collectively own.

Unilaterally declaring the results

The disgruntled commissioners added that the numbers released by Chebukati were erroneous and he ought to have verified them before declaring William Ruto as President-elect, stating that the commissioners were not in any way involved in processing the results.

“We wish to categorically state that from his statement, the chairman Mr Chebukati appears to have misconstrued his role and that of the commissioners and further misunderstood his Constitutional and legal mandate to verify results by the Commission to mean what he vaguely characterized as ‘moderation’ of those results,” Cherera slammed.

According to the four commissioners, Chebukati flouted the law and ignored their roles as he went ahead to unilaterally use results that had not been verified to declare William Ruto as the president-elect, further subverting the will of the people.

“The chairman went ahead to unilaterally declare the results without any plenary verification whatsoever by all the commissioners and/or their participation as mandated by the Constitution and electoral laws.

"His actions and conduct were unorthodox and turned the commission into a one-man show circus, in an attempt to subvert the Constitution, electoral laws, and the will of the people,” noted the commissioners in their statement.

Cherera clarifies as Chebukati hails “the most transparent election”

The quartet clarified that all they called for was the plenary verification of the results before the chairman could announce them, a request that Chebukati flatly declined.

They were responding to an earlier statement in which Chebukati alleged that they demanded that he should declare a re-run contrary to their oath of office, adding that all the commissioners were involved in the verification process at the Bomas of Kenya.

"The Chairperson refused to yield to this unconstitutional and unlawful demand and proceeded to declare the results of the Presidential Election as received from the polling stations,” Chebukati said.

The IEBC chairman hailed the election as the most transparent one noting that: "This is the most transparent election that the Commission has ever held. All results, Form 34As, were uploaded in real-time and are available in the public portal."