Jubilee Governors election at stake as court orders scrutiny of forms

The High Court has ordered a scrutiny on forms 37A in a petition challenging the election of Mandera Governor Ali Roba.

Presiding judge Fred Ochieng directed the deputy registrar to supervise the process, noting that a scrutiny of forms 37A may also provide the deputy registrar with relevant information.

The court further ordered the SD cards in respect to three polling stations to be examined.

The three polling are Al-Hidaya polling station, Olla Primary school polling station and Sukela Tinfa polling station.

The court had earlier indicated that the information in the SD cards be scrutinised to verify the alleged differences between the declared results and the results on the forms 37A which had been altered without the said alteration being counter-signed.

IEBC has however said that five of the 15 polling stations did not have altered results with the petitioner, Hassan Noor Hassan, insisting that there were obvious alterations on the face of forms 37A.

“In the light of the disagreement on the question as to whether or not there were alterations to the forms 37A in the five polling stations, I reiterate the need for the learned deputy registrar to carry out the verification exercise,” reads part of the ruling.

Justice Ochieng said that whether or not there is either an alteration or a signature on a form 37A, is a matter should be very easy to ascertain.

The court also ruled that the significance or impact of the lack of either one or both signatures of the presiding officer and the deputy presiding officer must be addressed through the final submissions, which will be made by the trial judge.

Hassan Noor Hassan wants the court to nullify Roba’s election on grounds that the gubernatorial race was not conducted in accordance with the law guiding the exercise.

In suit papers lodged on Monday at Milimani Law Courts, Noor claims “strangers” well known to Roba of Jubilee Party were deployed as presiding officers to oversee the election.

According to Noor, people who had been trained by the IEBC to monitor the election were not posted and instead, Returning Officer David Mark Ade decided to use strangers.

“It is apparent that the posting of strangers was deliberate to facilitate the electoral vices that took place,” he claims.

The Returning Officer declared Jubilee candidate Ali Roba the winner of the gubernatorial race after garnering 71,890 against the petitioner’s 63,003 of Economic Freedom Party (EFP).