POLITICS

Raila Odinga’s wish-list for presidential re-run

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NASA presidential candidate and opposition leader Raila Odinga arrives at the Kabiruini grounds in Nyeri for the 54th Madaraka Day celebrations.
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The Raila Odinga-led National Super Alliance (Nasa) has written to the electoral agency with 25 new demands that they say should be fulfilled in the October 17 fresh poll.

In a letter signed by Raila’s chief agent and Nasa co-principal Musalia Mudavadi, the opposition has demanded a full audit of the elections technology, full access to the servers, change of ballot printing firm, and the gazettement of new 290 constituency returning officers.

Controversial date

“It is therefore inappropriate and foolhardy for the IEBC to embark on the planning of the fresh election without full compliance with the Orders of the Supreme Court in the redeployment of technology in the fresh presidential election. We therefore demand a full audit of technology in use in full compliance with the law,” Mr Mudavadi said in the four-page letter.

The Nasa team has not only opposed the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission date for the repeat poll, it has also questioned why it narrowed the number of candidates to only Mr Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Related: Many bumps on the road to October 17 election

“Your interpretation that the election scheduled on the 17th October 2017 shall be in the style of a run-off contest of only two candidates is erroneous and unconstitutional. We also take reservation that you have not consulted the parties involved before making a determination on the date of the said election,” Mr Mudavadi told IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati.

ICT audit

In the audit, Nasa has demanded a scrutiny they say should have full information on the ICT infrastructure, list of support partners and their respective Service Level Agreements, a detail of the firewall configuration, including ports configuration, as well as disclosure of all database transaction logs.

The team also wants a physical view and inspection of the IEBC servers, portal access to the cloud servers and IP addresses of all 20 servers; full access and copy of all servers and databases used by the IEBC; GPS coordinates of KIEMS; and Telkom and network structure with all service providers.

The opposition has also demanded the removal of senior personnel at the IEBC secretariat including Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba, his deputy Betty Nyabuto, James Muhati, the ICT director, Ms Immaculate Kassait, director of voter registration, Ms Praxedes Tororey, the head of legal team, with Mr Moses Kipkosgey being added to the earlier list.

“Independence of the IEBC is not negotiable. Nasa coalition demands that fresh election should be administered by professional and non-partisan officials,” Mr Mudavadi said.

Sh3.8 billion

“We demand that officials who are partisan or perceived as such should step aside and or be suspended during the planning and execution of the fresh election.”

Further, the coalition demanded a full audit of the Sh3.8 billion 45,000 voter identification and results transmission kits that were provided by French-based Safran Morpho.

“We demand that Safran and Oracle provide full implementation information in relation to their involvement in the General Election held on 8th August 2017,” said Mr Mudavadi.

ALSO SEE: Raila threatens to boycott Oct. 17 election

The team has also demanded a review of the voter register, and the 40,883 polling stations.

To enhance transparency, Nasa said the following specific demands must be met:

  • Appoint and gazette returning officers not among the Constituency Election Coordinators in consultations with political parties and candidates.
  • Establishment of a technical monitoring committee with representatives of the main political parties, coalitions or candidates to oversee implementation of the technology in use.
  • Stop use of Al-Ghurair to print ballot papers and results declaration forms
  • All Forms 34Bs should be pre-printed indicating the names of polling stations in the constituency and names of candidates
  • Elections results to be announced at the Constituency level. Results sent electronically must be accompanied by corresponding statutory result declaration forms
  • Candidates’ agents should be part of receiving teams at the constituency and national tallying centers, and be allowed to confirm entries before transmission
  • Establish defined roles of the security agencies and eliminate undue influence by the provincial administration and other public officials

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