Uhuru Kenyatta defends poll victory in petition papers

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday defended his re-election, saying his win is based on his development record and an inclusive government. 

In a sworn statement filed in court in opposition to Nasa’s petition, Mr Kenyatta denied claims by his main challenger, Mr Raila Odinga, that he used State resources and civil servants to campaign for his re-election. 

The President described as disparaging remarks by Mr Odinga that his leadership was “computer generated”. He said his win was endorsed by Kenyans.

“The Deputy President and I are not computer generated leaders (vifaranga vya computer). The electoral victory was effected by the Kenyan voters,” he said. 

Mr Kenyatta described as a success inroads the Jubilee team made in alleged opposition strongholds, saying their strategy was backed by delivery of their 2013 election promises.

“Our strategy succeeded as demonstrated by the electoral results in all the six elections,” he said while annexing a graph showing Jubilee’s dominance in the Parliament, gubernatorial and county assembly seats.

President Kenyatta was on August 11 declared winner of the high stakes August 8 election which Mr Odinga has termed a sham, and petitioned the Supreme Court to declare the results null and void and order a fresh poll. 

DENIED CLAIMS

In his 10-page affidavit, President Kenyatta also denied claims by Mr Odinga that he threatened chiefs in Makueni with the sack for not campaigning for Jubilee.

In a joint response, the IEBC and its chairman Wafula Chebukati, who is listed together with President Kenyatta as the three respondents in the case, said that the election was above reproach. 

“The respondents aver that the declaration of the results of the presidential election was on the basis of results contained in Forms 34B from each of the 290 constituencies and the diaspora. The results contained in Form 34B is an aggregation of Forms 34A in each constituency.

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“In the circumstances, the results declared by Mr Chebukati  were not affected by any variances or errors that may have occurred at the point of data entry into KIEMS,” the IEBC said in its response to the petition.  

Further, the commission argued that focusing on the electronic transmission of results to question the final tally was wrong, insisting that it only declared the results using the results forms.

NEUTRAL

“In view of the foregoing, the presidential election was conducted in an impartial, neutral, efficient, accurate and accountable manner in accordance with Article 81(e) of the Constitution,” the commission said.

The President’s team was led by lawyers Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Katwa Kigen, Tom Macharia, Evans Monari, Jubilee chief agent Davis Chirchir and his deputy Winnie Guchu. Also on hand to help was party secretary-general Raphael Tuju and  Mr Kenyatta’s personal secretary, Mr Jomo Gecaga.

It took them more than an hour to offload all the documents. Mr Abdullahi blamed the late filing of the response to what he said was a voluminous bundle of documents that he said was from every part of the country.  

“We have filed 14 affidavits, including one by the President, with thousands of annexures to show that the election was fair, there was no violence, and the gap was very large,” said Mr Abdullahi. 

“The President’s supporters should be confident that this is a case that we have all the answers to,” he added

EMERGE VICTORIOUS

Mr Abdullahi, who had represented the electoral commission head Ahmed Issack Hassan in a similar petition in 2013, said he was confident that the team will emerge victorious.

“We are confident about the answers we give. We are bullish about everything we have done. And let the case start. We are ready,”  said Mr Abdullahi.

Interior Ministry  PS Karanja Kibicho and Jubilee chief agents are among key people who have sworn affidavits defending the President’s victory. The affidavits have been sworn by Mr Kenyatta, Mr Chirchir and Ms Guchu. 

On Tuesday, the electoral agency also filed at the Supreme Court, the documents used to announce the 2017 presidential results.

The filings by IEBC were in compliance with the Supreme Court Act, which provides that the documents should be made available once a petition challenging the presidential elections results has been filed.

Section 12(2) of the Supreme Court Act provides that IEBC shall, within 48 hours from the date of the service of a presidential election petition, submit to the Supreme Court certified copies of the documents used to declare the results of the presidential election.

RESULTS

This includes the forms used to announce the results of the election at the polling station and the constituency tallying centre and to declare the results at the national tallying centre.

Mr Odinga and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka have cited anomalies which they say, made the August 8 general election lack credibility.

They argue IEBC and the Jubilee administration deliberately undermined the deployment of technology, violating the Constitution and other electoral laws by using State resources to campaign and intimidating the opposition.

Significant number of returns were signed by persons not gazetted as Returning Officers and not accredited as such by IEBC thereby rendering those results invalid, they said.

Reported by Sam Kiplagat, Patrick Lang’at and Abiud Ochieng