A judicial team which scrutinized election results in 22 polling stations has discovered discrepancies raising questions on whether President elect Uhuru Kenyatta acquired the 50 plus one threshold required under the constitution.
Out of the 22 polling stations at least 5 had discrepancies regarding the number of votes cast as reflected in form 34 and those reflected in form 36, according to report compiled by judiciary team which was tabled before Supreme Court yesterday.
These five polling stations were Lomerimeri primary school, Tiaty constituency, Nthambiro primary school in Igembe central, Kabuito primary school in Igembe cetral, Mugomoini primary school in Chuka Igamba Ngombe and NCC social hall Langata constituency in Nairobi.
The team after scrutinizing results from more than 18,000 polling stations found that form 34s were missing in 10 polling stations. Also missing are aggregated results of form 36 registered voters from 75 constituencies.
For example in Mvita no aggregate was provided for votes cast while in both Kinango and Ganze registered voters were inserted by hand.
In Githunguri the team observed that there were two forms 36 with different number of votes cast. The second form in Githunguri constituency showed 72,987 for votes cast without indicated how many people were registered as voters.
The team noted that Laikipia west results where President elect Uhuru Kenyatta garnered 70,760 votes could not be verified. Other form of discrepancies observed by the scrutiny team were two form 36 for one constituency with different numbers of votes cast.
Form 34 is a form generated from every polling station which has the total number of voters in each polling station. While form 36 is an aggregate of all form 34s for Presidential election.
Immediately after perusing the report by judiciary team lawyer George Oraro representing Prime Minister Raila Odinga and lawyer Kethi Kilonzo representing AFRICOG asked the Supreme Court to allow their case and nullify the election results.
“Can decision by IEBC to declare Uhuru the winner be upheld by court in the absence of critical primary polling election materials?” Kethi posed. Oraro and Kethi said that there is clear evidence that IEBC failed to verify all election results as shown by the scrutiny by judiciary.
The two argued that with the missing form 34s it was evident that IEBC chairman Isaac Hassan who was returning officer of the Presidential election announced final results before getting all results.
“My lord the conclusion we can make from the findings of the report is that announcement was made before all results were in. Even if the polling station had one polling station and its result has not been received there is now way IEBC could go ahead and announce the result,” said Kethi.
“If there are form 34s missing you have to ask where they are and what are the results of those form 34s?” posed Kethi.
And the main question that arose was whether or not by the time IEBC announced the final election results the provisions of article 138(4) have been met by Uhuru.
The section among other things requires a presidential winner to get 50 plus one of total votes cast. “Can decision by IEBC to declare Uhuru the winner be upheld by court in the absence of critical primary polling election materials?” Kethi posed.
Oraro termed the discrepancies unearthed by judiciary team as ‘grave errors’ which cannot be ignored. He noted that the scrutiny of the 22 polling stations have shown huge variation for example an addition of 3347 voters between form 34s and form 36 and subtraction of 4639 voters.
The lawyer yesterday urged the six Supreme Court judges to look at the forms 34 and 36 very critically and the report given after scrutiny. In his view with what he had seen in the scrutiny report there is no way Uhuru made the threshold of 50 plus one of votes cast.
On its part the IEBC through lawyers Nani Mungai, Kamau Karori and Paul Nyamodi defended itself saying they had offered explanation to court in form of affidavits in relation to every polling station where discrepancies were noted.
Mungai said some of their returning officers might have made errors on the forms which IEBC rectified and this forms were supplied to court as part of the evidence.
Lawyers representing Uhuru and deputy president elect William Ruto both urged the court to disregard the report and uphold the decision by IEBC declaring the former as winner.
Uhuru’s lawyer Fred Ngatia said the discrepancies are just clerical errors and not anything substantial to warrant cancellation of election results.
He also said there is nothing mysterious about the form 34s as there are all available on IEBC website. The court will give its final decision this morning.