Raila now questions IEBC preparedness
Azimio la Umoja – One Kenya Coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga has addressed the office of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) expressing his dissatisfaction in its preparation for the August 9 General Election.
Through his chief legal advisor, Paul Mwangi, Mr Odinga has raised seven concerns that the commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati should address before the polls.
This comes after the commission made it clear that it will not use the manual register of voters.
Mr Odinga now says that Kenya Integrated Election Management System (Kiems) kits may be compromised in some areas that are perceived to be strongholds of one candidate in case there will be no physical register as backup plan.
“Without physical voter registers to immediately fall back on, the election will fail in such areas,” Mr Odinga said, adding that those who were identified by the commission for illegally transferring voters should have been arrested by now.
He added that the exclusive use of electronic voter identification raises serious questions on accountability of the process.
According to the ODM leader, the direction given by the commission regarding the physical registers is like asking the election officials to ignore regulation 69 (e) of the Election Act.
“In effect, the commission is repealing a legal instrument through its administrative directives. It is not open to the commission to ignore Regulation 69(e) for any election commission not to comply with it.”
The presidential candidate also said the commission’s assurance that there will be an addition of 11,000 kits during election will not meet the requirement of 46,000 polling stations. He added that technology, as per the previous elections, can fail, hence the need to address the matter urgently.
“It is very precarious for the commission to approach this election on the assumption that the technology will not fail. There is no justification to make this assumption,” he said.