Leaked recording of IEBC official tells of
hitches that marred poll
By KIPCHUMBA SOME
An exclusive two-part investigation by KTN
has cast fresh doubts over who actually won
Kenya’s 2013 presidential election.
The first part of the investigation aired on
KTN last night, with the second part to be
screened this evening.
KTN’s award winning investigative team of
Mohammed Ali and John Allan Namu
exclusively secured the recording by an
ODM insider of a very senior election
official casting doubts on the integrity of the
results transmitted by the Independent
Electoral and Boundaries Commission
( IEBC), which he still serves.
KTN says IEBC Chief Executive Officer James
Oswago denied that he is the election
official who claims (in the recording) that
the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s party, The
National Alliance (TNA), hacked into the
commission’s servers prior to IEBC
transmitting the election results.
The claims are in a one-hour telephone
recording with an ODM insider (“Mr X”) on
the night of March 5, 2013 when the
presidential results were being transmitted.
The technology IEBC had deployed for the
transmission failed on the Election Day.
The IEBC official claimed that an employee
of the commission overseeing the results
transmission was working for the NIS and
TNA.
Below is part of the KTN transcript.
IEBC Official: So their strategy began at a
very early stage… the other thing is that
they also infiltrated this system we were
using of electronic transmission.
Mr X: You mean they infiltrated the system
to influence the whole thing in their
favour?
IEBC Official: Yes, the only thing I don’t
know and can’t understand is how the
results can be so constant… in an election
where the results are coming in randomly,
you expect that one person would be leading
and maybe the other catches up and they
are overtaken again and so forth, isn’t it.
It cannot be that everything is so constant
especially in such a closely fought election.
How can it be that results coming in from
32,400 stations, come in almost
simultaneously and the performance is so
regular…it is impossible, even if you use
random theory of any other method, it can’t
work.
Mr X: It can’t work, that is why we are also
shocked.
IEBC official: That is why I am convinced
they infiltrated our system.
Mr X: So did they do that before or when
you began?
IEBC Official: Must have been before. I am
told they had their guy in there. It is
possible. In fact, it is not just possible it is
highly probable.
Mr X: It is highly what?
IEBC Official: Probable!
In the recording, the IEBC official says he
suspects that the Green Book (the manual
register used by IEBC on the Election Day)
was different from the one it released to the
public.
The KTN expose unearthed numerous cases
of missing Forms 36A, which were used to
announce the results in various tallying
centres across the country.
The forms also had varying results from
what was announced at the IEBC tallying
centre in Bomas of Kenya.
The IEBC official encourages ODM to
challenge the results in the Supreme Court.
Mr X: So in summary, you are saying there
is a problem… but you will still declare
someone a winner so the only thing is for
us is to go to the Supreme Court.
IEBC Official: No. I am saying that there are
things, many things that were not done
properly. One, when your guys came to the
tallying centre, they were kicked out.
Mr X: You mean where you were doing the
verification?
IEBC Official: Yes. You see how can you kick
out someone who is simply observing what
you are doing and not interfering with your
work? You cannot do that, unless you can
demonstrate that the person is interfering
with the process, and that was not the
case…Okay, the third one is this: when we
produced our register, we were supposed to
have 33,400(polling stations) but this was
reduced to 32,000 and something. But in
doing that we never told the country.
Mr X: You just did it internally?
IEBC Official: We just did it internally and
that should not have been the case.
Mr X: What did you say about the register
IEBC Official: That you cannot produce a
register and then just because it has a
problem, you publish a different one.
Mr X: So does this mean the register you
published was not the real one?
IEBC Official: The register we used is not the
one we published, which is why in some
cases you have different numbers from what
we have.
Mr X: So you are saying that this should not
have happened but it is simply not in the
public domain?
IEBC Official: Yes…and now just looking
back, it is occurring to me that this
confusion is because the register you guys
(ODM) have is very different from what we
are using. In Thika town, our tally from all
the forms 34 shows that Uhuru Kenyatta
garnered 54,337 votes, while Raila Odinga
got 11,207 votes. In the Form 36A for the
constituency, announced as the final result
of the election, Uhuru Kenyatta had 71,358
votes, 17,021 votes more than our count
from the Form 34’s.
In Alego Usonga, Siaya County, the variance
is also quite wide. In our tally of the
principal election document from that
constituency, Form 34, Raila Odinga
garnered 29,764 as opposed to Uhuru 42
votes. But, in the Form 36 tally of results
that were announced as final results at
Bomas, Raila Odinga’s tally had grown to
66,380, a variance of 36,616 votes.
Publicly, IEBC said there were 33,400
polling stations, but by the end of the
elections, this had shrunk to 31,025,
according to the election official in the
recording.
Oswago told KTN he listened to the
recording but could not recognise the voice,
because the person he is alleged to have
been speaking to was so distorted.
IEBC commissioner Thomas Letangula also
told KTN that the commission’s servers were
not infiltrated .
Source kenyatoday.com
