The Night Uhuru and Raila pleaded with IEBC over results

The behind-the-scenes drama and intrigues just hours to the announcement of the presidential election results on March 9, can now be revealed.

Wide-ranging interviews with senior electoral commission officials reveal the frantic final moments at the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi during which high-profile calls came through, asking the commissioners to declare or withhold results before the conclusion of a vote scrutiny.

Monitoring centre

The interviews also point to a cloud of suspicion that hung over the room on the night of the long knives, with the rival Jubilee and Cord camps listening in on telephone conversations with commission officials from their respective election results monitoring centres, making calls to selected officials to complain about perceived conspiracies or issuing threats to some officials.

The manual audit, which was being undertaken after the electronic transmission of results from the polling stations and constituencies collapsed, aborted after some commissioners walked into the tallying centre in turns and insisted that the verification must be completed in two hours.

Speaking in detail for the first time about the events that characterised the preparations for the March 4 General Election and the declaration of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as President-elect on March 9, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chief executive James Oswago appeared to suggest that the pressure piled on the commission officials by the Jubilee and Cord teams and the mounting public tension prompted them to declare the results prematurely.

“On the day we started the audit, commissioner Mohammed Alawi walked into the room where I was leading other IEBC staff in scrutinising the results. There was already a lot of pressure and the long wait was almost fatiguing. He then asked, ‘how much time do you need?’ Before I could answer, he declared: ‘two hours’,” Mr Oswago said.

“We looked at one another and laughed. We knew the enormous work that we had just begun. A two-hour deadline was obviously impossible to meet.”

Later, another group of commissioners led by Mr Ahmed Issack Hassan, the chairman, and Mr Thomas Letangule, walked into the room to get updates.

“It reached a point where I said let it be. I told the chairman if you want the results the way they are, take them. Commissioner Letangule came shouting and I told him if you want the raw results, take them,” Mr Oswago added.

Official results

“Then we decided to move on but we have not recovered from that event to date. I think we should have done more, but we let do with what we could manage. And that is how we came up with what we relied on to declare official results.”

Mr Oswago, who says he has suffered high-profile personal attacks over the exercise, said political party leaders, scared by the uncertainty arising from the delay in releasing the results, singled him out for blame.

“Uhuru Kenyatta (now President) and William Ruto (deputy President) had begun complaining that I was the one delaying the results. Ruto called the chairman and I heard him asking; ‘Why do you allow him? We will deal with him’,” Mr Oswago claimed.

Asked about the intriguing moments when the whole nation’s attention was on him, Mr Hassan admitted that he received high-profile calls as well.

“Yes, people called me. I received calls from Mr Kenyatta, Mr (Raila) Odinga, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka and even Ruto. Some calls even came from outside the country,” Mr Hassan said, without elaborating.

Mr Letangule admitted having gone to the tallying centre but explained that this was out of his concern that the exercise was taking too long.

“There is a time the chairman came where we were on the first day. Results had begun trickling in and he said, ‘If things continue like this then by tomorrow morning we will be done’,” said Mr Letangule.

“But on the second day, when the results transmission system collapsed, I went into the tallying room and found agents shouting all over. I said, ‘No. We can’t continue like this’. I then mobilised other commissioners, including Alawi, and we decided to remove them to ensure progress of business.”

Background went quiet

Mr Oswago said he also received a call from Ms Yvonne Khamati, now Kenya’s Deputy Ambassador to Somalia, who had joined Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto at the centre where they were monitoring results.

“She asked, ‘Mr Oswago what you are doing? Does it mean you intend to change the results and the winner of this election?’ All of a sudden the background went quiet. I later learnt Uhuru and Ruto were listening to our conversation. She had put me on speaker phone. But I told her I cannot do it. Whoever has won has won,” the IEBC chief executive said.

Friday, Ms Khamati told the Saturday Nation that she called in her official capacity as an election observer and was concerned over the delay in declaring the winner.

“I was an international observer and my communication to anyone from the IEBC was in that capacity,” she said.

Did not add up

The order to audit the results submitted by the returning officers was made after the commission began receiving conflicting reports in Form 38 from polling centres and Form 36 from the constituencies.

“We learnt that there was a big problem with results from Central and Nyanza. In Central, some of the results at the polling stations did not add up with those at the constituency,” said Mr Oswago.

“In Nyanza one case was in Kasipul Kabondo, where we had reported that Raila had scored about 36,000 votes only for the returning officer to present Form 36, showing he had garnered over 38,000.”

Mr Oswago recalled how just as the voter registration was coming to an end, Mr Odinga, the former Prime Minister, had made frantic efforts to have the deadline extended.

“When this thing started he (Mr Odinga) was told reports from Nyanza showed a very dismal response in voter registration. But he kept insisting all was well. Then towards the end he sent Mr Caroli Omondi to request for an extension. We told them no! we can’t do it,” Mr Oswago said.

Mr Odinga also alleged that the commission had registered underage voters in one presidential candidate’s stronghold, Mr Oswago said.

“At one point Raila called me to complain. He asked, ‘Are you aware some underage secondary school students have been registered in some regions?’ I told him, ‘Yes, but what do we do, they have IDs?” Mr Oswago said.

Integrity of the poll

Mr Odinga challenged the conduct and results of the election in the Supreme Court and lost the petition.

The IEBC declared Mr Kenyatta the winner, having garnered 6,173,433 votes against Mr Odinga’s 5,340,546 votes. Local and foreign election observers have also approved the integrity of the poll in their reports.

But the Supreme Court ordered an investigation into the procurement of the equipment used in the elections after the failure of the electronic voter identification devices.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is also investigating the multi-billion procurement of the biometric voter registration kits.

Four commissioners, Mr Oswago and all the top directors at IEBC have recorded statements. Five people are expected in court in Nairobi next week over charges related to the procurement.