IEBC wrangles continue as four commissioners hit back at Chebukati over runoff claims
2 min readIEBC wrangles continue as four commissioners who disowned presidential results hit back at Chebukati over runoff claims
Credibility on the body mandated to deliver free and credible elections, IEBC continues to sink with the ongoing war among the commissioners.
The four IEBC commissioners who disputed with Wafula Chebukati over the results of the presidential election claim that he has turned the body into a one-man show.
Vice-chair Juliana Cherera, Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyang’aya, and Irene Masit stated in a statement on Friday said that they have a constitutional obligation to thoroughly examine the results before declaring them.
They claimed it was autocratic of Chebukati to deny this request.
“We wish to categorically state that from his statement, the chairman Mr. Chebukati appears to have misconstrued his role and that of the commissioners and further misunderstood his Constitutional and legal mandate to verify results by the Commission to mean what he vaguely characterized as ‘moderation’ of those results,” they stated.
“He argued that there was no legal basis for the commission’s involvement in supervising and verifying results received at the national tallying centre,” they said.
In response to the four rejecting the presidential election results, Chebukati accused the four commissioners of trying to subvert the sovereign will of Kenyans by forcing a runoff.
After informing the four on the results he would be announcing, the IEBC chair claimed that they requested him to moderate them so that the nation may hold a re-run of the presidential election.
Contrary to what the four commissioners said, he said, he had included them in the process to the point that they were declaring the results of various constituencies as they were validated.
But the IEBC wrangle continues as the four commissioners accused Chebukati of having misconstrued their mandate to verify results to one of moderating them.
“At no time did the commission seek to moderate election results but rather requested that a proper verification as envisaged in the Constitution is carried out,” they said.
“His actions and conduct were unorthodox and turned the commission into a one-man-show circus in an attempt to subvert the Constitution, electoral laws, and the will of the people.”
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