Why the Court Nullified Kenya's 2017 Presidential Election

[Joe Kihara Munugu]

Why the Court Nullified the Election
The fact that IEBC did not fully comply with the Supreme Court's order to provide access and documents related to IEBC servers and Election Results Documents (Forms 34A, 34B and 34C) caused the Supreme Court to judgement against the integrity of the whole election process and to nullify the election. That failure by the IEBC demonstrated to the Supreme Court majority that the election was not held in a transparent and accountable manner - in accordance with Kenya's Constitution and the electoral laws. This consideration went to the heart of the Supreme Court’s decision to nullify the Presidential election and to void the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner.

Was the court right or wrong in nullifying the election - especially considering that nobody, including the petitioner Raila Odinga, challenged the reported voting-result figures on the polling stations primary results documents - Forms 34A? Uhuru Kenyatta's lawyers termed the Court's decision as "political" and not based on the constitution and the law.

Whatever justification comes with the full ruling by the Supreme Court majority this 2017 elections judgement will be debated by Kenyans and the world for many generations to come.
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The Supreme Court had appointed two teams of experts with directions to examine the IEBC servers and forms 34A, 34B and 34C which were used to declare Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of the August 8 election. The IEBC servers report was written by Prof Elijah Omwenga and Prof Joseph Sevilla, IT experts appointed by the court, togetehr with Ms Janet Kadenyi, an employee of the Kenya Judiciary.  Scrutiny on the forms 34A, 34B and 34C was supervised by the Supreme Court registrar Esther Nyaiyaki.  The reports indicted IEBC for failure to comply with the court order and for what appeared to be irregularities and illegalities.
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The Supreme ordered IEBC to provide the following: 

• Log in trail of users and equipments into the IEBC servers Log in trail of users and equipment into Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) data base management system
  
• Administrative access log into IEBC public portal between August 5-to date
  
• Certified copies of the original forms 34a 34b 34 c prepared at and obtained from the polling stations by the presiding officers and used to generate final tally of presidential election
  
• Forms 34a 34b 34c from all the 40,883 polling stations
  
• Scanned and transmitted copies of forms 34a, 34b
  
• Firewalls without disclosure of software version, password policy
  
• Password metrix
  
• Certified copies of certificate of penetration test conducted on IEBC election technology system prior to and during 2017 election. This will include certified copies of all reports prepared and certified copies of certificates by professionals.
• Specific GPRS location of each Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kit used during election between 5-11 August 2017
  
• Certified list of all Kenya Integrated Elections Management System kit procured but not used and or deployed during the election.
  
• Polling stations for each Kenya Integrated Elections Management System kit used and or deployed during the elections.

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Reported by Joe Kihara Munugu