NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug, 12 – After the results verification exercise was temporally interrupted at the national tallying center domiciled at the Bomas of Kenya, following concerns raised over a ’suspicious’ laptop on the auditorium floor, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has sought to address the matter once and for all while laying out a number of ground rules.
Presidential agents from both the Kenya Kwanza coalition and Azimio La Umoja, One Kenya Alliance had first raised the red flag over the presence of the ‘suspicious device.’
Upon discussions with the stakeholders, the poll body has now issued several resolutions on the modus operandi at the tallying center.
IEBC Commissioner Abdi Guliye said that as a result of the incident, the floor of the auditorium would only be accessed by IEBC officials, agents of each of the presidential candidates, and the returning officers bringing results on every desk amid tallying and the verification exercise.
“We will have the chief agents and a deputy who will alternate and one of their lawyers and they are the only people who will be allowed on the floor of the auditorium. Everyone else who comes into this building will seat at their respective marked areas on the dais,” he said.
Consequently, presidential agents will be allowed to have a laptop for purposes of having downloaded forms 34As from the public portal or the Application Programming Interface (API) access given to them.
“They can download in their one laptop and they will be allowed to counter check the results forms downloaded from the web portal against what the returning officers will provide them with, so every agent will have one laptop per desk,” said Guliye.
Presidential agents have further been directed not to bring any paper material into the tallying center.
In case of any queries, two IEBC coordinators will be managing the floor at each point while interacting with the agents.
“The coordinators will be the first point of contact and they will escalate to the commission if need be,” said Guliye.
Kenyans have on the other hand been warned against spreading false information about the electoral process.
“There is something circulating in the media that one politician was kicked out having brought in a laptop. There was nothing wrong with that political party agent having it on the tallying center floor,”
“That kind of misinformation, character assassination the commission does not encourage and would want those propagating such lies to restrain themselves so that the country can be peaceful,”
Millions of Kenyans are still waiting with bated breath to find out who their next president will be.
IEBC however say that they have a constitutional obligation to do their work diligently and make the announcement on who the winner is after seven days.
“The commission is fully aware that we have seven days to declare the presidential results and we are committed to ensuring that we comply with the constitution and applicable laws. We will not allow anybody including agents of political parties, and presidential candidates to frustrate the efforts to try and comply with the seven-day deadline. Agents will play facilitative roles in trying to expedite the verification process that is taking place at the various desks,” he said.
Security has meanwhile been heightened at the tallying floor with Guliye saying that the number of officers will be reduced depending on how peaceful the situation is at the national tallying center.
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