By Brian Okoth
Four former Kenyan election officials have insisted that the results of the August 9, 2022 presidential polls were unfair.
Juliana Cherera, Irene Masit, Francis Wanderi and Justus Nyang’aya have told a bilateral committee comprising representatives of the Kenyan government and the opposition that the chairperson of the electoral board IEBC did not “tally or verify” the results as stipulated in the law.
“Even today, we stand by our word: we disown the presidential election results,” Cherera, the former vice chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), told the committee through a statement in the capital Nairobi on Thursday.
She said she resigned in December 2022 from her position because she and her colleagues were “threatened for speaking what we saw.”
‘Forced to resign’
On his part, ex-commissioner Wanderi, who also quit his position in December, said: “I want to admit that we were forced to resign. It was not our desire.”
Masit, who fled Kenya after the disputed election results, said in a statement to the committee that “it is very important to audit the (presidential election) results. There was no tallying and no verification (of the electoral outcome). It was a shame for our country.”
She added that she had to flee because she comes from the vast Rift Valley region, the native home of Kenya’s current President William Ruto, whose win they had challenged.
“They (Rift Valley natives) say that I betrayed the (Kalenjin) community,” she said. The Kalenjin ethnic group is the dominant community in Rift Valley, and has produced two heads of state so far.
Former commissioner Justus Nyang’aya also reiterated his colleagues’ submissions that the 2022 Kenyan presidential election was unfair.
Walkout
On August 15, 2022, when the then-IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati was about to announce the presidential election results, the four stormed out of the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi and went to a private hotel in the city where they disowned the electoral process, terming it “opaque.”
They would later say that Ruto had been illegally aided to victory.
Ruto, former deputy of Kenya’s fourth president Uhuru Kenyatta, faced off against veteran politician Raila Odinga, who was taking a stab at the presidency for the fifth time.
Ruto, a former MP from Rift Valley, who had been Kenya’s second-in-command between 2013 and 2022, was declared the winner with 7.18 million votes (50.49%) against Odinga’s 6.94 million votes (48.85%).
While announcing the results, Chebukati, whose team had remained with only two other commissioners – Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu – said there had been attempts to coerce him to change the results.
‘Hot air’
The terms of Chebukati, Guliye and Molu have since expired. The other four had already resigned, leaving the seven-member commission without senior officials. A recruitment is ongoing to replace them.
Odinga unsuccessfully challenged Ruto’s win at the Supreme Court of Kenya, with the judges terming his evidence “hot air.”
The bilateral committee, set up to revisit the election grievances among other issues, was assembled after deadly protests, led by the opposition, rocked Kenya in early 2023.
The government has fronted a senior member of parliament, Kimani Ichung’wah, while the opposition is being led by former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka.
