Waweru Gatonye to lead IEBC lawyers in repeat poll petition

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has picked a team of eight lawyers to represent it in the presidential election petitions at the Supreme Court, Nation has learnt.

IEBC has at the same time replaced some of its lawyers as it set up the team to be headed by Senior Counsel Waweru Gatonye, a source familiar with the matter said.

Mr Paul Muite, who led the team in the petition in August, told Nation that he will not be doing the same job this time round.

“The IEBC want a fresh team of lawyers and I support that position and that decision completely. I think it’s a good decision so I am not acting in this fresh petition,” Mr Muite told the Nation.

TEAM

Others in the team were reported to be Kamau Karori, Eric Gumbo, George Murugu, Wambua Kilonzo, Kimani Muhoro, Mahat Somane and Lucy Kambuni.

Mr Gumbo, Mr Kilonzo and Mr Muhoro and Mr Gatonye, the lead lawyer, are the new entrants.

It was not clear who will represent Mr Chebukati, who is one of the respondents.

The commission had Paul Nyamodi, Prof PLO Lumumba, Issa Mansur, Millie Odari and Peter Wanyama on their team last time.

CHEBUKATI

The reconstitution of the team goes along the same lines as the appointment by IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati of a special team, led by deputy chief executive Marjan Hussein, to oversee the repeat election.

Mr Chebukati praised the team as he announced the results and declared President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of the repeat poll.

He cited its creation and guidance by the commission acting as a steering committee to guide it as one of the factors that made the election, in his view, successful.

The commission will be hoping its new team of lawyers represents it better than the one that did so in August as some insiders were of the view that the election was annulled because of a failure to properly explain the electoral process.

The commission’s lawyers found it difficult to answer questions about inconsistencies in security features on the results forms and access to the servers.

LEGAL CHALLENGE

When he announced the results of the repeat poll last week, Mr Chebukati attempted to show what the commission had done differently to insulate the election against a legal challenge.

He cited the changes made to ensure the election was run better as the fresh training of staff, installing each Kiems kit with a Safaricom Sim card to speed up the transmission of results, inviting parties to send ICT agents to monitor the process, training officers on how to use printers, satellite technology and to follow procedures to the letter.

“We ensured that the National Returning Officer, that is myself, would only announce results after receiving all forms 34A and signing the handover of the forms 34B from the returning officer,” said Mr Chebukati.

The commission was reported to have gone to great lengths to ensure that result forms from all the constituencies where elections happened were brought to Nairobi.

The commission also changed the technology used to transit the forms from file transfer protocol (FPP) to a virtual private network (VPN).

Only verified results were displayed at the National Tallying Centre at the Bomas of Kenya.