IEBC chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba. [Photo/the-star.co.ke]The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officials have received a reprieve after the Supreme Court failed to incriminate individual persons attached to the mismanagement of the August 8 elections.
In its final decision on Wednesday September 20, the Supreme Court judges said they found no basis to rule any of the IEBC officials culpable because the petitioner, Raila Odinga placed no evidence before the court that would tie IEBC officials to electoral offences committed in the general elections.
“No evidence was placed before us to prove that electoral offences were committed by officials of IEBC. What we saw in evidence was a systematic institutional problem and we were unable to find specific fingerprints of individuals who may have played a role in the commission of irregularities,” CJ David Maraga ruled.
He said the court was therefore unable to “impute any criminal intent or culpability on either the IEBC Chairman or any other Commissioner or member of IEBC.”
The opposition has been on the forefront demanding resignation of a score of persons at the Commission for allegedly being behind the manipulation of election results during last month’s poll.
The IEBC found itself a victim of the resignation calls even before the Supreme Court delivered its full judgement.
IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati was had, in a leaked 12 point memo (dated Tuesday, September 5), called on CEO Ezra Chiloba to offer an explanation for the failures that led to the nullification of the presidential poll.
The controversial memo saw cracks in the commission as a section of the commissioners denied being party to Chebukati’s stand.
Five IEBC commissioners disowned Chebukati’s memo that laid blame on Chiloba for the systemic flaws in the August 8 General Election. The five who disowned the memo on the grounds that the commission had not met as a plenary to discuss the issues at the core of the annulled poll were vice-chairman Consolata Nkatha Maina, Yakub Guliye, Paul Kurgat, Boya Molu and Margaret Mwachanya.
Paul Kurgat later denied also being party to the camp that disowned Chebukati’s memo.
The memo questioned the use of a “porous file server,” voters who were identified manually, hundreds of polling stations which had an equal number of rejected votes and registered voters; and why location features on some KIEMS gadgets were switched off three days to the elections.
DPP Keriako Tobiko had deferred any action with regard to the Commission’s officials and conduct of the impugned August 8 presidential election pending the Supreme Court’s full verdict.