Kenya: IEBC Commissioner Massit Wants President-Elect Ruto's Victory Overturned, Says Its Unverifiable

27 August 2022

Nairobi — A commissioner at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Irene Massit now wants President- Elect William Ruto's win overturned on grounds that there was lack of transparency, accountability and verifiability.

In her response to the presidential petition, Massit submitted that the presidential election held on the 9th of August 2022 was marred with several instances that did not depict transparency, and particularly on the part of IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati.

Massit accused Chebukati of denying all the other commissioners an opportunity to exercise their constitutional mandate thus rendering the presidential election unverifiable.

"The conduct of the chairman through the entire electoral process was whimsical and solely intended to invalidate the presidential election by rendering the said results cloudy and in effect overthrow the constitution," she stated.

According to Massit, the presidential results declared by Chebukati are invalid saying that when you compute percentages awarded to the four presidential candidates, ( Ruto 50.49 per cent, Odinga 48.85 per cent, Mwaure 0.23 per cent and Wajackayoha 0.44 per cent), the percentage exceeds by 0.001 per cent.

"To this extent the total percentage of the total votes cast was 100.001 per cent glaringly demonstrating the irregular and erroneous unilateral computations by the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission," the affidavit reads.

She also submitted that Chebukati declared the winner of the presidential elections before results from over twenty constituencies were verified by the commission, thus it wasn't possible to determine a winner in the hotly contested election.

Massit further said that none of the commissioners set eyes on the form 34C that the chairman used to declare the presidential results, and that none of the commissioners took part in generating the same.

"The 8th respondent avers that the impugned results declared by the second respondent in the presidential election was not arrived at in accordance with the constitutional requirements and therefore unconstitutional, invalid, null and void," she submitted.

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