VICTORY for NASA as court makes landmark ruling on presidential election results

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has suffered a major blow after the Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that the presidential election results as announced at the constituency level are final.

In its ruling, the three-Judge bench of the Court of Appeal said that IEBC, which is the country’s electoral body, is represented from Ward level to the Constituency, County and National levels and hence cannot dispute the results as announced at the constituency level.

The bench composed of Justices Agnes Murgor, William Ouko and Patrick Kiage, ruled that the IEBC should transmit election results electronically from the Constituency Tallying Centre to the County Tallying Centre and to the National Tallying Centre in that order.

IEBC moved to the Court of Appeal after the High Court ruled that the presidential election results announced at the Constituency Tallying centre are final, a ruling IEBC disputed arguing that its chair, Wafula Chebukati, is the presidential election returning officer and should be the one to announce the final presidential results.

IEBC had argued that the results at the constituency levels should and must be treated as provisional until confirmed, verified and announced as final by its chair at the National Tallying Centre.

The Court also ruled that the verification of votes, in case of a dispute, can only be done by a court and not by the poll body.

The High Court, through Justices Weldon Korir, Aggrey Muchelule and Chacha Mwita, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017 ruled that presidential election results announced at the polling station and constituency levels will be final, a directive the poll body wanted reversed.