NASA’S CO-LEADER AND LAWYER ALSO UNDER INVESTIGATION

Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecution, Keriako Tobiko, has directed the Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and the the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to commence investigations into the actions of officials from the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to ascertain whether there were any illegalities involved with last month’s presidential election.

Eleven officials at the IEBC, including its Chief Executive and one of the Commissioners are to be investigated. The DPP has given the investigators 21 days to report back to him.

Tobiko has also ordered an investigation into the activities of two of the main opposition’s leading figures, lawyer James Orengo and Nasa’s co-leader Musalia Mudavdi, over allegations that they accessed the IEBC’s servers and threatened Uhuru Kenyatta’s chief election agent.

As directed by Tobiko the EACC and DCI will have to determine if any electoral or criminal offences were committed by IEBC officials.

In the ruling by Kenya’s Supreme Court last week the court declared that it had found no evidence of individual ‘culpability’ by election board officials. The failings associated with the election process, the court determined, were institutional, not criminal.

However, Tobiko has reportedly said that the Supreme Court’s findings did not stop him from pursuing a further investigation.

IGAD – DON’T SABOTAGE OR BOYCOTT THE ELECTION

In a separate development, Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), whose observer mission at the August 8 election have given the process a clean bill of health, has warned against any attempts to hinder the IEBC’s administration of the presidential election re-run due on October 26.

“Sabotaging [the] IEBC or boycotting the elections will put Kenya in a constitutional crisis and likely on a path to an unconstitutional change of government” and IGAD statement declared. IGAD says it is confident that the IEBC can administer the next election effectively.

Nasa opposition leader Raila odinga has said that he will not take part in the next election if the election board officials are not sacked.

Later today it is expected that the IEBC will respond to the list of demands Nasa wants enacted before it will take part in the election.

Meanwhile, Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee appears to be considering legal moves to re-visit the Supreme Court’s decision to annul the result of the last election and call for a new poll which Kenyatta has referred to as a “judicial coup”.

The possible legal  move by Jubilee is based on the dissenting opinions of two of the Supreme Court Judges (out of the six who heard the case). Kenyatta’s team are reportedly looking at seeking a recount of the ballot papers to counter the majority ruling by four of the Supreme Court judges that overturned the election result on a basis other than a dispute over the true numbers of votes cast for each candidate.