Thursday, September 1, 2022 – Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman, Wafula Chebukati, has confirmed Azimio Leader Raila Odinga’s worst fears.
This is after he admitted to giving the three controversial Venezuelans arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) full access to IEBC servers.
Through his lawyer Eric Gumbo, he defended the three Venezuelans, saying the foreigners were contracted by Smartmatic – one of the providers of technology used in the August 9 polls.
Gumbo, moreover, indicated that the three were tasked with maintaining the technology and ensuring it worked effectively on the polling day.
IEBC maintained that none of the three accessed the system during the election day as alleged in the petition filed by Raila Odinga and Martha Karua and seven other petitioners.
“The contract between IEBC and Smartmatic was for the supply and maintenance of the infrastructure that they had. It then meant that they had to bring their personnel to manage or monitor the smooth running of that system.”
“Before the election, these people were all logged out and on the date of the election, none of these people was in the system,” Gumbo argued.
The IEBC lawyer also told the apex court that the evidence provided by the petitioners only indicated that the foreigners had access to the server and did not prove that they were engaged in any electoral fraud.
‘It would make a lot of sense if someone said that so and so got into the system and interfered with the system in this manner. It is not enough to say Gumbo was found in the system. What matters here is around manipulation or alteration of votes,” he added.
In their petition, Raila and his running mate Martha Karua alleged that the foreigners who had access to the servers were used to manipulate Forms 34 A that were transmitted through KIEMS kits from the polling stations.
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