Jubilee accuses foreign envoys of meddling

The Jubilee Coalition has accused foreign envoys of meddling in the Kenyan electoral process with a view to manipulate last Monday presidential elections.

And the coalition also demanded that the IEBC should stop tabulating the percentage of votes won by the Presidential candidates based on the total number of votes cast.

The coalition’s running mate in the presidential election William Ruto accused unnamed foreign ambassadors in Kenya of “canvasing” to deny the coalition what he termed as a clear win in the elections.

“We are very concerned at the level of involvement of ambassadors and foreigners canvassing for various positions in this elections. We know for sure that certain embassies have had positions in respect to this elections,” Mr Ruto said.

He further said that some of those involved in canvassing were strangers who have no direct roles to play in the process.

The press conference was triggered by an announcement earlier by IEBC chairman Mr Issack Hassan in which he said the commission would reset the tabulation formula.

He said the commission will work with the total number of votes cast rather than the total number of valid votes.

Pressed to cite instances and give examples, Mr Ruto said that the matter would be raised properly with the concerned authorities.

Mr Ruto asked supporters to be patient and await the official announcement of results based on official documentation.

Earlier, top level Jubilee Coalition leaders led by Ms Charity Ngilu unsuccessfully attempted to confront the IEBC chairman over the matter.

“Invalid votes should not count. We are demanding that the commission should continue to give results based on the valid votes counted attempts to use any other formula is illegal and unacceptable,”Ms Ngilu said.

Mr Hassan said at the press conference on Tuesday that parties’ representatives had asked about the legal definition of votes cast in the Constitution as opposed to valid votes.

“Our understanding of the words ‘votes cast’ is that it is any vote that has been put in the ballot box, whether it is a valid vote, or a rejected one. So that’s what we mean by votes cast,” he said.

“These screens are showing different numbers…they are showing valid votes, they are showing disputed votes and they are showing rejected votes. During the tallying center calculation and the official announcement of results, we’ll have to calculate them properly…what is the actual votes, the votes cast in the whole country,” Mr Hassan said.