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Karua, Kalonzo ‘jostle’ to walk next to Raila


A video capturing Azimio la Umoja presidential running mate Martha Karua cheekily swapping places with Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka in order to walk next to the coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga has elicited interesting reactions from Kenyans.

Mr Musyoka and Ms Karua appeared to be engrossed in conversation as they walked towards the KICC after submitting a petition at the Supreme Court, challenging the results of the presidential election.

A few minutes into their conversation, Ms Karua pulls Mr Musyoka to her left so that she could be the one walking next to Mr Odinga.

Mr Odinga and his Azimio la Umoja on Monday filed a 72-page petition challenging the presidential election results.

In their petition, Mr Odinga and Ms Karua claim that there was a plan, which was hatched in March, to manipulate the election results in favour of Dr William Ruto.

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Part of the manipulation, Mr Odinga and Ms Karua hold, is seen in a sample of 42 polling stations in Kiambu and Bomet counties where physical forms differ from what was uploaded onto IEBC’s portal.

In the two counties, Dr Ruto got significantly more votes in the forms uploaded on the IEBC portal, compared to the physical documents, while Mr Odinga’s votes were significantly reduced.

This, Azimio la Umoja say, shows that there was a massive swap of documents in Dr Ruto’s favour and is a ground for invalidation of the results.

The conflicting forms, the petition states, share serial numbers but have different results, which is evidence of manipulation.

The Azimio duo allege IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati bungled a second successive presidential election, and that he disregarded several election laws in declaring Dr Ruto the President-elect.

The Azimio team argues that the numbers Mr Chebukati relied on in his declaration do not add up when tallied against the vote transmission forms.

Last week, Mr Chebukati announced, amid chaos at the national tallying centre in Bomas of Kenya, that Dr Ruto garnered 7.1 million votes (50.49 per cent of the total votes) against Mr Odinga’s 6.9 million (48.85 per cent). In the certificate handed to Dr Ruto on August 15, Mr Chebukati stated the result were based on 14,213,137 votes from all over the country.