With the hearing of the presidential election petition by the Supreme Court Judges set to begin tomorrow, the court has identified nine issues to address during the pre-trial conference held today.
Chief Justice Martha Koome said the court will seek to find out whether the technology deployed by IEBC met standards of integrity, verifiability, security and transparency to guarantee accurate and verifiable results.
Other issues as listed by Koome is whether there was interference with uploading and transmission of forms 34A from polling stations to the IEBC public portal.
The court, the CJ said, shall also seek to find out whether there was a difference between forms 34A uploaded in the portal and those received at the National Tallying Centre and forms 34A issued to agents at polling stations.
Koome who was speaking during the Pre-trial hearing also noted that the issue of whether postponement of gubernatorial elections in Kakamega and Mombasa counties, parliamentary elections in Kitui Rural, Kacheliba, Rongai and Pokot South, and Nyaki West and Mukuru kwa Njenga wards resulted in voter suppression to the detriment of the petitioners in petition number E005/2022, shall be looked in to.
She said among other issues, the court shall also find out whether the declared president-elect attained 50 per cent plus one vote of the total votes cast in accordance with article 138 (4) of the Constitution.
The CJ requested the parties to observe punctuality and be respectful of the Court’s conduct with decorum during the hearing of the presidential election petition.
Koome outlined that due to the time limit, there shall not be extension of time to the parties participating in the hearing of the petition and urged the media to adhere to guidelines as stipulated by the Court.
“As you are aware, we are still under the Covid -19 protocol that requires we keep social distance and due to limited space, we shall have a limited number of advocates with only accredited media personnel allowed in to cover the hearing proceedings,” said Koome.
She noted that out of the nine presidential election petitions filed, two of them were struck out with the court considering the remaining seven to evaluate President-Elect William Ruto’s victory in the concluded general election held on August 9, 2022.
By Catherine Muindi
