The Jubilee Coalition has accused
foreign envoys of meddling in the Kenyan electoral process with a view to
manipulate last Monday presidential elections.
And the coalition also demanded that
the IEBC should stop tabulating the percentage of votes won by the Presidential
candidates based on the total number of votes cast.
The coalition’s running mate in the
presidential election William Ruto accused unnamed foreign ambassadors in Kenya
of “canvasing” to deny the coalition what he termed as a clear win in the
elections.
“We are very concerned at the level of
involvement of ambassadors and foreigners canvassing for various positions in
this elections. We know for sure that certain embassies have had positions in
respect to this elections,” Mr Ruto said.
He further said that some of those
involved in canvassing were strangers who have no direct roles to play in the
process.
The press conference was triggered by
an announcement earlier by IEBC chairman Mr Issack Hassan in which he said the
commission would reset the tabulation formula.
He said the commission will work with
the total number of votes cast rather than the total number of valid votes.
Pressed to cite instances and give
examples, Mr Ruto said that the matter would be raised properly with the
concerned authorities.
Mr Ruto asked supporters to be patient
and await the official announcement of results based on official documentation.
Earlier, top level Jubilee Coalition
leaders led by Ms Charity Ngilu unsuccessfully attempted to confront the IEBC
chairman over the matter.
“Invalid votes should not count. We
are demanding that the commission should continue to give results based on the
valid votes counted attempts to use any other formula is illegal and
unacceptable,”Ms Ngilu said.
Mr Hassan said at the press conference
on Tuesday that parties’ representatives had asked about the legal definition
of votes cast in the Constitution as opposed to valid votes.
“Our understanding of the words ‘votes
cast’ is that it is any vote that has been put in the ballot box, whether it is
a valid vote, or a rejected one. So that’s what we mean by votes cast,” he
said.
“These screens are showing different
numbers…they are showing valid votes, they are showing disputed votes and they
are showing rejected votes. During the tallying center calculation and the
official announcement of results, we’ll have to calculate them properly…what is
the actual votes, the votes cast in the whole country,” Mr Hassan said.
At 6.15 pm when the total votes cast
stood at 5,437,973 Mr Uhuru’s 275,353 million votes posted 53 per cent when
tallied against the total number of valid votes cast while Mr Odinga’s stood at
41 per cent.
But calculated against the total
number of votes cast the numbers shifted with Mr Kenyatta’s coming down to 50
per cent and Mr Odinga 39 per cent.
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