IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati has dismissed as defective a petition by former Kakamega senate aspirant Seth Panyako seeking his removal from office.
In response to an exclusive story carried by The Star yesterday, Chebukati said Panyako’s allegations are “incurably defective”.
The IEBC boss denied wrongdoing during last year’s elections, saying the results declared by returning officers and gazetted were tallied. He said a similar petition was dismissed by the High Court which slapped the unionist with a Sh3 million fine.
“The High Court findings were that the complete results, relevant to the petition were the ones declared by the returning officer in form 38C and not the electronic results allegedly published on the IEBC’s portal,” Chebukati said in a statement.
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He said Panyako’s allegations were an attempt to blackmail the commission in a bid to destruct IEBC from pursuing the costs of litigation due to it from the petitioner.
Panyako had petitioned Parliament to have IEBC chairman removed from office for irregularly altering Kakamega senatorial election results. Panyako’s petition was received by the Clerk of the National Assembly on Monday last week and is due to be discussed by the Justice committee.
Panyako, who is the secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Nurses, accuses Chebukati of false and malicious gazettement of election results.
The unionist claims the returning officer wrongly declared Senator Cleophas Malala the winner having garnered 228,432 votes.
“In blatant disregard of the result declared by the returning officer for the purported winner, Chebukati gazetted that Malala had garnered 258,178 votes which was 29,746 votes more than the 228,432 votes declared by the returning officer,” Panyako says.
”The increment of the difference between the two top candidates to over 59,126 was unjustified and illegal.”
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