IEBC breaks silence after final Supreme Court judgment

dennis kibet

September 21, 2017 2:10 PM

The IEBC has spoken for the first time since the Supreme Court ruling...

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has for the first time spoken hours after the Supreme Court judges delivered their full judgement on the nullified August 8 presidential polls.

The commission took to twitter revealing that they are currently studying the detailed Supreme Court ruling and will communicate how they will implement the recommendations of the judges.

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The judges led by Chief Justice David Maraga said that they were unable to find any evidence of criminal intent or wrongdoing by either Chairperson Wafula Chebukati, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners, secretariat or staff.

Maraga said that the errors emanated from systematic institutional problems and found no proof that any IEBC official committed criminal offences.

The CJ directed IEBC to organize and conduct a fresh election in strict conformity to electoral laws within the stipulated timelines as required by the constitution.

However, the IEBC and its Chairperson Wafula Chebukati were criticised for behaving as though the provisions of Sections 39, 44 and 44A of the Constitution did not exist by failing to offer any plausible response to the question on whether all Forms 34A had been electronically transmitted to the national tallying centre as required by Section 39 (1C) of the Elections Act.

According to the judges, the commission failed to grant access to two critical areas of their servers— its logs, which would have proved or disproved the petitioners’ claim of hacking, and its servers that contained Forms 34A and 34B.

IEBC’s "disobedience" of the court’s order left the judges with no option but to accept NASA leader Raila Odinga’s claims that either the commission's IT system was infiltrated and data doctored or its officials themselves interfered with the data.

After the judgement, Raila's lead counsel James Orengo clarified that the Supreme Court was not a criminal court to investigate the IEBC staff and announced that it was now up to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Keriako Tobiko to investigate and prosecute officials at the commission found guilty of bungling the August polls.

dennis kibet