The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) accused Azimio leader Raila Odinga of forging evidence he submitted to the court in his presidential election petition.
In his submissions on Thursday, September 1, IEBC advocate Mahat Somane asked the Supreme Court to reject the Forms 34A tabled by Raila’s legal team as the authentic forms, noting that they were manipulated.
Somane told the Court that the alleged forgery by the petitioner was evident in the case of the form purported to be from Ndaina Polling station in Tiaty, Baringo county.
“In the Arnold Ochieng affidavit, they claimed that in Ndaina polling station, they claimed that their agent provided them with a form which was different from what is in the portal.
“If you look at the form attached to the portal and even the one the petitioner submitted, there was no agent at the polling station. This is a photoshop gone wrong,” he noted.
The advocate broke down the discrepancies of the forms submitted by Raila’s team in terms of the content of the image.
“Our forms were downloaded, and the numbers forged. But the problem is that all forms submitted by IEBC have a black and white background unique to the KIEMS kit,” he added.
While explaining the discrepancies, Somane elucidated why Forms 34A in the portal were in PDF format. He noted that this was made possible by a software pre-installed in the KIEMS kits.
“We were deliberate to have the KITS have an imaging software embedded and send them in PDF. This was for security purposes and to differentiate between images taken and what we put out on the portal,” he remarked.
On the claims that forms were downloaded, manipulated and re-uploaded to the online platform, the lawyer termed the accusations as misconstrued, affirming that forms cannot be uploaded to the portal but are only transmitted.
The issue of the process of altering the forms as well as their formats was among the clarifications sought by the Supreme Court Judges following the submissions by the petitioners’ litigation team.
“The original form 34A leaves the polling station to the tallying centre by road, its image goes to the same destination virtually. Somewhere it is compromised which means you would find different content. To determine this, you would need the physical form. Is it possible that the capturing that happened mid-air also somehow magically changes the content of the one that left by road?” Justice Smokin Wanjala asked.
“I presume that when the KIEMS kits take the image, and the forms were filled in hand writing, how can you explain then how a form can be changed in handwriting because this is not typed?” Justice Njoki Ndung’u queried.
