Advocates from the respondents side have poked holes in an election petition filed in the Court of Appeal by former Kisumu county boss Jack Ranguma.
Edwin Mukele, the advocate representing the IEBC told the three-judge bench hearing the case that most grounds that the petition was founded on were blanket claims.
“The petitioner is just insisting that there was violence, bribery among other discrepancies but does not disclose the persons and places involved, and he also doesn’t show how the claims affected the final results of the gubernatorial poll,” stated Mukele.
Mukele maintained that the appeal was incapacitated citing that most issues were ambiguous, and that some critical High Court rulings were not pleaded and therefore diminishing the appeal.
Senior Counsel James Orengo, the advocate representing Governor Anyang' Nyong’o questioned the credibility of the Data/ICT expert that the petitioner claimed to have used to access information from IEBC servers.
When questioned on how he managed to access the data during the hearings in the trial court, Orengo said that the analyst only stated that he was helped by an anonymous source from the IEBC.
“He also told the court that he could only demonstrate how he penetrated the servers if they were availed in court. We cannot believe in his sentiments as they raise alarm on the credibility of the information claimed to have been accessed from IEBC servers,” Orengo told the court.
Orengo further stated that if to be considered, the evidence by the said analyst, was also consistently pointing that his client won the election.
“It is very surprising that the defence has evidence against them. This is a solid ground that illustrates that Governor Nyong’o won elections, “stated Orengo.
On his part, Richard Onsongo, the advocate representing Ranguma, defended his client stating that the High Court dismissed his petition unfairly, adding that it never understood the grounds on which the petition was founded upon.
“The petition was not only founded on contested figures. It was largely based on the fact that there was a systemic failure which culminated in an election that was not free and fair,” stated Onsongo.
He further noted that IEBC itself had admitted in court that there was violence, and also conceded to the fact that it went ahead and announced that Nyong’o had won the election before all votes in totality were collated.
“This was sufficient evidence that the whole balloting exercise was poisoned and that there was no need to be specific as the whole county was affected,” stated Onsongo.
The case was presided over by Justice Philip Waki, Justice, Fatuma Sichale and Odek Otieno. They ordered that they will make a statement on the case on June 14.