Nairobi — A civil society group has moved to the High Court seeking to stop the tallying of presidential ballots by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

The African Centre for Open Governance is asking the High Court to order IEBC to start the tallying and verification of the presidential ballots afresh.

The lobby is also demanding unhindered access to political party agents and accredited observers to witness and participate in tallying and verification of the presidential ballots.

The organisation claims that the tallying process is not credible and requires urgent court intervention.

"The respondents (Issack Hassan and IEBC) are threatening the very foundation of democracy as there are many identified irregularities that will undermine the integrity of the results including tallying of non-verified presidential ballots yet there is uncontroverted evidence of many constituencies having a turnout of more than registered voters," lawyer Haron Ndubi said in the petition filed at the High Court.

"The fear of a repeat of 2008 reaction to doctoring of ballots is imminent hence the urgent need to the intervention of this court."

At the time the case was being heard before a three-judge bench led by Justice Isaac Lenaola, Uhuru Kenyatta was leading with 4,835,482 votes against Raila Odinga's 4,316,005 votes.

JUDIE KABERIA

Judie is a Special Projects Reporter. She has eight years experience in Journalism in Kenya and Germany. She has scooped awards in Reproductive Health, Population and Development and Gender and Development. She has participated in international conferences in Germany. She has a soft spot for human rights and justice stories.