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Post by deyiengs on Mar 10, 2013 12:28:55 GMT 3
I hate that it has to happen, but I can't wait to hear the oral aurguments. Just sample the legal team: George Oraro, Mutula Kilonzo, James Orengo, Ababu Namwamba, Amos Wako, Gitobu Imanyara, Pheroze Nowrojee, Chacha Odera, Ambrose Rachier and Paul Mwangi. Haya soma: CORD appoints poll petition teamUpdated 13 mins ago By Geoffrey Mosoku NAIROBI; KENYA: The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) has appointed a team of lawyers who will spearhead their petition to contest Uhuru Kenyatta’s election as president. The team will be led renowned lawyer George Oraro with cabinet ministers Mutula Kilonzo, James Orengo and Ababu Namwamba and former AG Amos Wako being part of the legal team.
Others are Gitobu Imanyara, Pheroze Nowrojee, Chacha Odera, Ambrose Rachier and Paul Mwangi.The three ministers will only provide technical support and advice to the team and will not be appearing before the court as litigants, since the law bars ministers from representing clients before court of law. Oraro was Minister Henry Kosgey’s lead lawyer in the ICC case which is credited for having been successful to help the minister to be cleared by The Hague based court. CORD is planning to move to the Supreme Court on Monday morning to lodge their case, in which they are seeking to have Uhuru’s declaration as president-elect nullified on grounds of anomalies that marred the poling and vote tallying exercises. The coalition led by Raila Odinga argues that figures of votes attained by Uhuru were inflated in hundreds of thousands especially in Jubilee strongholds while they were denied their votes in Cord strongholds. On Sunday, they lawyers who have been meeting since Saturday were finalising their papers and pieces of evidence to provide their case in court. The Cord will be moving to the Supreme Court of Kenya which is established under Article 163 of the Constitution. It comprises of the Chief Justice, who is the president of the Court, the Deputy Chief Justice, who is the deputy to the Chief Justice and the vice-president of the court and five other judges. However, currently, the court does not have a deputy chief justice following the resignation of Nancy Baraza on grounds of misconduct last year. Justice Kalpna Rawal has been nominated to fill the slot but has to wait parliamentary approval through vetting. The Supreme Court which is the only court with exclusive original jurisdiction to hear and determine disputes relating to the elections to the office of President under Article 140; is properly constituted for purposes of its proceedings when it has a composition of five judges. Chief Justice Dr Willy Mutunga who is the president of the court, and Judges Dr Smokin Wanjala, Njoki Ndung’u, Philip Tunoi, Jackton Boma Ojwang and Mohamed Ibrahim will sit in the bench to hear Cord’ petition. The court will determine if the Issack Hassan led IEBC violated the law when the electronic voter identification devices failed and resorted to sue the manual register to identify voters, and if the collapse of the electronic voter tallying too was a negation of the elections act. Although, the commission admitted that they systems had failed due to technical problems, Cord believes this was systematic to allow the interference of the electoral process. “What Kenyans witnessed instead was the failure of virtually every instrument the IEBC had deployed for the election: The poll books, the servers, the telephonic transmission, the BVR – they all failed despite the billions spent on acquiring them,” Cord leader Raila said. Two days after the vote, the electronic tallying was discarded and counting begun afresh, manually. “That too turned out to be a flawed exercise in which, among other things, there was massive tampering with the IEBC Final Register of Voters. Voter registration numbers were reduced in our strongholds and added to Jubilee strongholds!” Raila quipped on Saturday while reacting to the announcement of Uhuru as president-elect. |
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Post by mangai on Mar 10, 2013 13:50:22 GMT 3
When Raila and ODM resorted to mass action in 2007 to protest the disputed presidential elections, there are those who had argued that he should have moved to court if he had any grievances. ODM’s argument then was that the judiciary was compromised and it was almost impossible to get any favourable ruling against a sitting president, as Kibaki had already been hurriedly sworn in, let alone the difficulties one encountered in serving the petition to a sitting president. It was because of those misgivings that the constitution was changed to allow for the swearing in to take place three weeks after the declaration of results to allow for any petitions to take place. That is why, as of now, Uhuru is not yet the president of Kenya.
Raila has resorted to the constitutionally provided mechanism of challenging the election result. That is in the courts as opposed to the streets. Then there are those who have now changed tune and are encouraging Raila to be a ‘statesman’ and abandon that pursuit because in their opinion, the country could as well redirect the six billion shillings that are likely to be spent in the runoff let alone the fact that Raila is unlikely to win in the ensuing run off. What they forget is that if Uhuru had not won by 4100 votes, we could still have gone for a run off as provided for in the constitution with or without Raila conceding or participating.
The Cord team need to convince the court that the irregularities they cite are so material as to cause a difference of 4100 votes, the number with which Uhuru won. But what is likely to come out during the SC hearing is likely to be very very embarrassing.
Among some reports coming out is the use of IDs or passports as the only identification documents required to vote. After the massive failure of identification kits, there are reports that even those who had not registered were allowed to vote while in some areas some people were given more than one ballot papers. Party agents were not scrutinising the identity of voters before they could be allowed to vote as that role was left to polling clerks only and you can imagine what could happen if they were compromised.
The problems of 2007 where figures were allegedly doctored to achieve a certain threshold is what led to change of our election laws to provide for electronic transfer of election results from the polling stations. Those results were to be as much as possible comparable to the final figures in the hard copies as submitted by the returning officers. It is the equivalent of sending a document as an email attachment then sending the hard copy later. The documents are still the same. The electronic tallying system ‘failed’ at the hour of need. Never mind the IEBC had used the same method to transmit results for the last referendum and it had worked quite well.
I also find Hassan’s explanation of a computer bug that was multiplying rejected votes by a factor of eight quite absurd. For starters, when you multiply any number by a factor of 8, you always get an even number. Is that what we were getting?
Raila MUST and should be encouraged to go to court to preserve our democracy and deter those who will otherwise take it for granted that it is okay to tamper with any future election process. In the event that IEBC officials are found culpable, including Isaak Hassan, then they should be personally held criminally responsible for their actions as provided for by our laws. In fact I found it quite ridiculous for Hassan to publicly thank those who had conceded at the same time ‘encouraging’ others who had not already done so to follow suit. In that one, he overstepped his mandate.
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Post by deyiengs on Mar 10, 2013 14:31:34 GMT 3
Mangai,
When this thing is settled, whichever way it goes, I would want to see the IEBC give a comprehensive report on the TOTAL failure of their system. I would understand a failure in ten or 11 polling stations, but an almost 100% failure is unacceptable. I don't care who won, it might have well been Uhuru, but the mere fact that we go to an election expecting x and get y needs thorough explanation. Especially when the stakes are that high.
I holding my breath that those allegations don't turn out to be true. It would be embarrassing as you said. I'm now curious to see footage of the tallying board before the electronic transmission was abandoned. I hope there were no odd numbers at any one time for the unusually high rejected votes that were displayed. But I don't think that argument can hold water as far as his case is concerned. After all the IEBC abandoned the method.
I'm made to understand that the constitution mandates or provides for electronic voter transmission, does the same constitution also provide for alternatives in an event the extronic system goes bananas just as we just wintnessed. Any legal minded guy, can we get some pro-Bono advise on this.
Thanks
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Post by kamalet on Mar 10, 2013 15:07:04 GMT 3
Mangai, When this thing is settled, whichever way it goes, I would want to see the IEBC give a comprehensive report on the TOTAL failure of their system. I would understand a failure in ten or 11 polling stations, but an almost 100% failure is unacceptable. I don't care who won, it might have well been Uhuru, but the mere fact that we go to an election expecting x and get y needs thorough explanation. Especially when the stakes are that high. I holding my breath that those allegations don't turn out to be true. It would be embarrassing as you said. I'm now curious to see footage of the tallying board before the electronic transmission was abandoned. I hope there were no odd numbers at any one time for the unusually high rejected votes that were displayed. But I don't think that argument can hold water as far as his case is concerned. After all the IEBC abandoned the method. I'm made to understand that the constitution mandates or provides for electronic voter transmission, does the same constitution also provide for alternatives in an event the extronic system goes bananas just as we just wintnessed. Any legal minded guy, can we get some pro-Bono advise on this. Thanks Deyiengs There is no provision in the constitution for electronic transmission of results. This provision is in the Elections Act but with the proviso that the results will only be provisional. Final results will be through manually tallying the returns from the constituencies. Now that is the process used by the IEBC. The plan was that the electronic transmission of the results would allow the commission to provisionally declare a winner in 48 hours and the manual tallying completed before the end of 7 days for the official release of the result. The electronic process was to ensure that the delays witnessed in 2007 and which led to suspicion and violence was curbed. As you and I know, the system failed! But that alone will NOT invalidate the election. |
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Post by deyiengs on Mar 10, 2013 16:08:38 GMT 3
Thanks for clarifying that Kamalet, I knew something was a miss when I heard about that electronic transmission stuff. That alone then, cannot stand on the way of one Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.
Why would such senior lawyers put their reputation in line by introducing a case that's dead on arrival? Have they really considered the strength of the case?
Very strange animals these. Africans
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Post by kamalet on Mar 10, 2013 16:22:55 GMT 3
Thanks for clarifying that Kamalet, I knew something was a miss when I heard about that electronic transmission stuff. That alone then, cannot stand on the way of one Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta. Why would such senior lawyers put their reputation in line by introducing a case that's dead on arrival? Have they really considered the strength of the case? Very strange animals these. Africans Listening to Raila and then reading his statement, as I said elsewhere, he did not bother to read it prior to presenting it or even question its contents. I suggested that the speech was written by one covering their mistakes! The issues he raised are actually arguments that he should be making to court and at the end of the day, he seemed to be blaming the IEBC rather than his competition for the evils that bedevilled his campaign. The starting point was the shambles of his secretariat - and this is notwithstanding the claims to the contrary by Phil -when they could nto get a venue for the last rally that it was the same disgraced Kimemia who bailed them out by pleading with Uhuru to let go Nyayo Stadium. Apart from that and I understand could be the issue that causes Raila problems is that TNA spent considerable amounts of money recruiting their agents and I am told they had 95% coverage of all STREAMS in the +30,000 polling stations and in most cases had 2 per stream. The total number of these is given at about 185,000 polling agents whilst CORD is suggested to have had only about 70% coverage of agents in all the streams. Considering that previous complaints like the ones of Kalonzo turned out to be wrong, it will be interesting to see how the case is framed. I hope when the case is presented before these lawyers, they will advice on the dangers of proceeding as I think taking the Integrity ground by this team would show Raila as a dishonest man who said he preferred beating Uhuru on the ballot and not through court cases to stop him contesting. The good thing is that the filings will be public and we can discuss these based on information in the public domain! |
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Post by kamalet on Mar 10, 2013 16:43:22 GMT 3
Somebody's idea of rigging:
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Post by jakaswanga on Mar 10, 2013 17:07:33 GMT 3
The real scandal to me is the cost of the BVR-kitty, an excess of ksh. 4 billion, plus another extra ksh.100M from the Americans. Then the things registered a 100% failure rate within 3 hours of service.
As ChesHirecat said, a forensic audit would be in place. Must be in place, also considering it was the cabinet, chaired by Raila and in the presence of Orengo and Mutula who usurped certain parts of the process, and are now lead lawyers. ---Details on the Omwenga thread: is the iebc compromised.
BVR has been a great financial rip off. That is evident. In fact William Ruto, who takes over finance docket, has to come clear on this, institute and investigation to regain this money for the tax-payer [luckily he was not in cabinet then], and ban the company that delivered them from ever transacting business within Kenya again.
Yes, the digital generation. This is the firs in the in-tray. Let us see what Ruto is made of. In office. Or just another hot air talker on delivery!
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Post by nereah on Mar 10, 2013 18:07:26 GMT 3
man kama. i can see you did visit one of the most compelling twitter handles on kenyan politics @kumekuchaphil  by the way is it true that diplomats who had waited fr hours for the presidential election results announcement walked out on kamwana when he walked in to be handed its certificate at bomas.....and should we care by the way? Somebody's idea of rigging: |
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Post by mangai on Mar 10, 2013 20:27:51 GMT 3
Considering that previous complaints like the ones of Kalonzo turned out to be wrong, it will be interesting to see how the case is framed. The complaints were actually not wrong only that they were not acted upon by IEBC. If one has time, please check through the results declared by the Commission, especially the number of registered voters, and compare the list of registered voters per constituency as released in December 2012. For instance, the Kajiado South constituency that Kalonzo had referred to was said to have 42,000 voters who had turned out vote against 46,000 who are registered. But when you check the IEBC register released in December, Kajiado South had 41,040 registered voters. Clearly, those who voted were more than the OFFICIAL number of registered voters. There are very many more of such cases which will come out during the SC hearing. |
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Post by b6k on Mar 10, 2013 23:36:44 GMT 3
Mangai, When this thing is settled, whichever way it goes, I would want to see the IEBC give a comprehensive report on the TOTAL failure of their system. I would understand a failure in ten or 11 polling stations, but an almost 100% failure is unacceptable. I don't care who won, it might have well been Uhuru, but the mere fact that we go to an election expecting x and get y needs thorough explanation. Especially when the stakes are that high. I holding my breath that those allegations don't turn out to be true. It would be embarrassing as you said. I'm now curious to see footage of the tallying board before the electronic transmission was abandoned. I hope there were no odd numbers at any one time for the unusually high rejected votes that were displayed. But I don't think that argument can hold water as far as his case is concerned. After all the IEBC abandoned the method. I'm made to understand that the constitution mandates or provides for electronic voter transmission, does the same constitution also provide for alternatives in an event the extronic system goes bananas just as we just wintnessed. Any legal minded guy, can we get some pro-Bono advise on this. Thanks , if Professor Joel Barkan, advisor to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is to be believed (& I suppose you lot believe anything an mzungu over what any Kenyan citizen says, the failure rate of the notebooks (read electronic equipment) was somewhere near the 25 percentile mark. I don't see much coming out of the 100% failure charge because the system did work well at my polling station & I believe in tens of thousands more.... Here is the EU's take: www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-110868/elections-were-free-and-fair-says-euThat's a mighty impressive legal team by the way. Let's not forget our history that even the Spaniards amassed a mighty armada against the Brits & still lost a major naval war..... |
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Post by deyiengs on Mar 10, 2013 23:38:29 GMT 3
Another quick question for the legally minded folks. So CORD will serve the Supreme Court with their challenge, that that is true is neither here nor there. Now I'm wondering because I read somewhere that Jubilee is also preparing their lawyers for defense.
My question is, and I'm sorry if this had already been covered somewhere in Jukwaa, to whom will the CORD legal team serve as defendants, is it the IEBC or the Jubilee? I know for sure that the IEBC will have to defend their Uhuru Kenyatta's pronouncement as president elect. But why, if the gutter press I read is true, that Jubilee is preparing to defend? They are surely not part of IEBC. Anyone please.
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Post by einstein on Mar 10, 2013 23:51:11 GMT 3
Another quick question for the legally minded folks. So CORD will serve the Supreme Court with their challenge, that that is true is neither here nor there. Now I'm wondering because I read somewhere that Jubilee is also preparing their lawyers for defense. My question is, and I'm sorry if this had already been covered somewhere in Jukwaa, to whom will the CORD legal team serve as defendants, is it the IEBC or the Jubilee? I know for sure that the IEBC will have to defend their Uhuru Kenyatta's pronouncement as president elect. But why, if the gutter press I read is true, that Jubilee is preparing to defend? They are surely not part of IEBC. Anyone please. The defendant will be IEBC, but Jubilee will want to attend as an interested party. |
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Post by deyiengs on Mar 11, 2013 3:47:13 GMT 3
Deyiengs,The defendant will be IEBC, but Jubilee will want to attend as an interested party. Thanks Einstein, I understand that, so what are their lawyers going to argue about? Are they going to defend and commend the IEBC for doing a good job? Or are they also going to have counter arguments against what the CORD team will bring forth? All I can say is that, it'll be very interesting to hear what will be going on. |
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Post by KOLONEL BRISK on Mar 11, 2013 4:12:14 GMT 3
I blame the Maths teacher for this. Shame.
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Post by deyiengs on Mar 11, 2013 6:20:32 GMT 3
I blame the Maths teacher for this. Shame. I hope they rectified this. It was just a small hiccup. We're all humans so let's give these people some slack. They were working crazy hours and its understandable that he made the error. I hope this is not what CORD is planning to produce as evidence on the SC. |
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Post by mank on Mar 11, 2013 6:28:27 GMT 3
I blame the Maths teacher for this. Shame. I hope they rectified this. It was just a small hiccup. We're all humans so let's give these people some slack. They were working crazy hours and its understandable that he made the error. I hope this is not what CORD is planning to produce as evidence on the SC. Is the problem that he said 15 thousand instead of 51000? That's very serious in some quarters, I guess ... let's repeat the elections for that matter! |
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Post by kamalet on Mar 11, 2013 10:15:03 GMT 3
Considering that previous complaints like the ones of Kalonzo turned out to be wrong, it will be interesting to see how the case is framed. The complaints were actually not wrong only that they were not acted upon by IEBC. If one has time, please check through the results declared by the Commission, especially the number of registered voters, and compare the list of registered voters per constituency as released in December 2012. For instance, the Kajiado South constituency that Kalonzo had referred to was said to have 42,000 voters who had turned out vote against 46,000 who are registered. But when you check the IEBC register released in December, Kajiado South had 41,040 registered voters. Clearly, those who voted were more than the OFFICIAL number of registered voters. There are very many more of such cases which will come out during the SC hearing. IEBC reconfirmed the numbers for Kajiado as 46218 in their final register publication on 24th February 2013 (http://www.iebc.or.ke/index.php/media-center/press-releases/4) as opposed to the figure that was being shown on the constituency tracker of 41000. The point is that if these are the basis of arguments, then it is pointless going to court. The problem I see with all this argument is that IEBC published the final registers a few weeks before the elections and asked people to confirm their details. I do not think anyone has a leg to stand on for using provisional registration figures as their basis of argument as is the case here! |
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Ouali
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Post by Ouali on Mar 11, 2013 12:17:33 GMT 3
Looks like some people in this forum are scared of the petition . Why dont you let the process just go on and the truth come out. Or do you know something we dont?
All kenyans have trust in the judiciary and if Raila is trying to imagine allegations then mutunga and co will put him off.
On the contrary, If the IEBC cooked figures then they should be made to account for the same.
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Post by kamalet on Mar 11, 2013 12:47:15 GMT 3
Looks like some people in this forum are scared of the petition . Why dont you let the process just go on and the truth come out. Or do you know something we dont? All kenyans have trust in the judiciary and if Raila is trying to imagine allegations then mutunga and co will put him off. On the contrary, If the IEBC cooked figures then they should be made to account for the same. I am not sure who you allude to but I get the feeling that people are saying it is Raila's right to petition but they are questioning his decision! That surely is not tantamount to fearing the petition! In the fullness of time we shall have the details of the Cord election grouse and we shall cut it and dice it right here in Jukwaa |
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emali
Full Member
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Post by emali on Mar 11, 2013 14:10:27 GMT 3
The complaints were actually not wrong only that they were not acted upon by IEBC. If one has time, please check through the results declared by the Commission, especially the number of registered voters, and compare the list of registered voters per constituency as released in December 2012. For instance, the Kajiado South constituency that Kalonzo had referred to was said to have 42,000 voters who had turned out vote against 46,000 who are registered. But when you check the IEBC register released in December, Kajiado South had 41,040 registered voters. Clearly, those who voted were more than the OFFICIAL number of registered voters. There are very many more of such cases which will come out during the SC hearing. . The point is that if these are the basis of arguments, then it is pointless going to court. The problem I see with all this argument is that IEBC published the final registers a few weeks before the elections and asked people to confirm their details. I do not think anyone has a leg to stand on for using provisional registration figures as their basis of argument as is the case here! Alot of people seemed to have used the 18th Dec numbers (me included)...it will be Interesting to see what CORD have...I would hope CORD doesn't end up embarassing itself... I love movies..courtroom dramas especially...in the movie A Few good Men...their was one particular line where the Iconic Colonel Jessup was being cross examined by Lt Kaffe as to why Santiago (the murdered Marine) wasn't packed prior to leaving the base,he was apparently going to be 'transfered' as claimed by Jessup & his surbodinates... Kafee had provided phone calls of who Jessup called prior to attending the trail (intimating that Santiago called no one yet he should have been elated to be granted his wish of leaving & call family/friends) & described how Santiago wasn't packed yet he desperately wanted to leave the base...Jessup with his typical smug attitude replied ... Now, are these the questions I was really called here to answer? Phone calls and foot lockers? Please tell me that you have something more, Lieutenant. These two Marines are on trial for their lives. Please tell me their lawyer hasn't pinned their hopes to a phone bill. ;D CORD had better have more than what Kalonzo provided, they had better make sure Jubilee/IEBC ordered the Code Red...personally I thought the last few constituencies that IEBC commisioners announced need verification especially Emurua Dikirr where Jubilee thrashed CORD by close to 90% yet the two coalitions had spilt every constituency in Narok County almost on a 50% to 50% basis...but that's just me...CORD had better have some solid evidence...IMHO IEBC did a decent Job,Hassan was taking no prisoners in his briefings,it's not easy running such an operation with close to 300,000 staff & literally six elections at one go...I don't see the Judges reprimanding IEBC unless CORD has a very very very strong case... |
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Post by roughrider on Mar 11, 2013 14:41:15 GMT 3
Gosh... I am too busy. There are too many errors of fact, omissions and outright lies in this thread. I don't think I will spend time pointing them out but its a great thing that court arguments will be televised. many will learn.
In the meantime, let us just say, the scale of theft is breathtaking.
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Post by roughrider on Mar 11, 2013 14:46:00 GMT 3
Alot of people seemed to have used the 18th Dec numbers (me included)...it will be.... I think it would be great if you spent some time with the two registers and examined them critically for yourself. One lesson I have learnt over the years is NEVER to be convinced by what anyone says on-line. NEVER. Almost everything went wrong with this election process... with the exception of Isaack Hassan announcing the winners as if he had won himself and now mis-using public money to convince Kenyans to accept the result when there is constitutional and legal freedom to disagree! |
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Post by kamalet on Mar 11, 2013 14:59:19 GMT 3
Alot of people seemed to have used the 18th Dec numbers (me included)...it will be.... I think it would be great if you spent some time with the two registers and examined them critically for yourself. One lesson I have learnt over the years is NEVER to be convinced by what anyone says on-line. NEVER. Almost everything went wrong with this election process... with the exception of Isaack Hassan announcing the winners as if he had won himself and now mis-using public money to convince Kenyans to accept the result when there is constitutional and legal freedom to disagree! RR Are you too lazy to read the law?? There is nothing to compare about the December provisional listing and the February final listing. These were declared as per the law by the IEBC per gazette notices and if CORD is realising now about discrepancies when they were given the registers in February, you get to know what shambles that campaign was. The only legal register is the one issued in February and what was applicable for the elections!! Prove me wrong....and am happy to apologise! |
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Post by foresight on Mar 11, 2013 15:01:14 GMT 3
CORDS case is NOT really against JUBILEE.. neither is it against UHURU... Its focus is IEBC.. JUBILEES victory notwithstanding... CORD is saying IEBC you were inefficient.
JUBILEE you may have the votes, but IEBC there were irregularities that could have swung the pattern of the election... CORDS case is not targeting UKs legitimacy as president in a fair contest...
Its against IEBC lack of reasonable doubt in declaring UK a winner. Its Not RAO and UK butting heads... It's NOT I HOPE about LUOS and KIKUYUS at leadership TUG of war....
It's about solidifying a system that we can never and should never doubt, when it takes over the great government machinery..
Its a test, of elections that are free of suspicion, a test of our judiciary, in that it can be impartial and solid.....
CORD HAS PURPOSEFULLY put together some of the best legal minds (if not the best) we have in this country ..... both the lawyers and the judges... So that the judicial system can prove itself... We say we can try the the ICC CASES LOCALLY? let's try this... if IEBC was wrong then the elections should be repeated by any means....
If the elections were beyond reproach then UK should be sworn in, but..... Let it be beyond reasonable doubt.
Voters always lose if the elections are bad, candidates lose in free and fair elections. Cant wait to hear the arguments in the court case.
UNTILL THEN UHURU KENYATTA IS NOT MY PRESIDENT....
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