IEBC disagreements began as early as April, court told
IEBC disagreements began as early as April but only came to the public limelight on August 15.
Lawyer Jotham Arwa argued before the Supreme Court on Friday that the commissioners’ differences were kept quiet in order to preserve public trust in the panel.
Arwa who is representing commissioner Justus Nyang’aya was responding to a question by Justice Isaac Lenaola on Wednesday, on why the four commissioners waited till the last day to raise their grievances.
In his submission before the court, Arwa said the IEBC disagreements started way before the elections but the four dissenting commissioners kept it away from the public.
“When they (commissioners) reached Bomas, they were assigned menial responsibilities as this court has been told, once again there were protests but the commissioners took the firm view that it would be irresponsible for them to let their infighting be made public, for fear of eroding public confidence in IEBC during an election year,” Arwa said.
“It is for that reason why they chose to handle their differences diplomatically,” Arwa added.
In her affidavit, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission vice chairperson Juliana Cherera said verbal exchanges between them and chairperson Wafula Chebukati began months to August 15.
Arwa said the disenfranchised commissioners were tasked to declare the results at Chebukati’s discretion.
He added that the commissioners could not, however, continue keeping quiet and let the chairman act unconstitutionally.
“Although they were willing to tolerate corporate governance infractions with equanimity, they were not ready to do that with regards to serious Constitutional violations.”
He reiterated that the four were not involved in the tallying and verification of results.
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