As the east African largest economy closes in on the declaration of the presidential election results, reports from various sources have started signaling the possibilities of a re-run. Anxious Kenyans continue to hold their breath as figures keep flactuting with dominance moving in a pendulum bob manner swinging a win between the two top contenders.
Exactly two days since election day, The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) continues to keep Kenyans in suspense. It however operates legally on the wheels of Article 138 (3) (c)which allows the Commission to count votes from all polling stations, tally, verify and declare the results within seven days.
In addition to IEBC’s strong adherence to the legal procedure, analysts have pointed out 7 reason to exonerate and justify IEBC’s snail efforts to declare the election results and these in chronological order include;
1) Polling station office submits Form 34A onto the online public portal after signatures from all agents.
2) Polling office then delivers physical form to constituency Returning Office.
3) Constituency Returning Office tallys, adds up all form 34As into 34B and then uploads 34B nto the portal.
4) Constituency Returning Office delivers physical 34As & 34B to national tallying Centre.
5) IEBC has to verify including matching each 34A image online to the physical form 34A delivered by the Constituency Returning Office in the presence of the presidential candidates agents.
7. After all the above is done and dusted, IEBC Chair announces final tally and declares winner.
The above procedure is tedious and require ample time for due diligence to be executed
To ensure transparency, the media, political parties and civil society groups have been encouraged to run their own tallies using final results from over 40,000 polling stations uploaded on the IEBC portal. This has given numerous media houses the liberty to come up with a variety of results attributed to technical abilities by each media house, man power and speed at which information is disseminated.
By press time, citizen T.V had Raila Odinga in the lead with
49.87% flexing tightly with William Ruto who is closing in at
49.46%. Wajackoyah comes in 3rd with 0.44% while Waihiga trails at 0.23%, on the contrary, Ktn news has placed UDA’s William Ruto in the lead with 49.8% followed by Raila Odinga at 49.6%. Wakackoyah slides into the 3rd place after garnering a meager 0.4% whereas Waihiga is stack at 0.2%.
According to Article 138(10) of constitution of the Republic of Kenya, ” Chairperson of the Commission shall declare the result of the election and deliver a written notification of the result to the Chief Justice and the incumbent President,” . a declaration that no any other body is allowed to declare the final results.
Of the 22,120,458 registered voters, only 12,808701 participated in the elections.
To win the presidential race in the first round, a candidate need more dan half of all the votes casted across the country and at least 25% of di votes cast in a minimum of 24 counties.
But if figures remain the same, Kenya will be deemed to prepare for a re-run between the two top contenders as dictated by the law.
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