The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has said that the three Venezuelan nationals who were granted access to its servers during the August 9th polls did not meddle with the outcome of the presidential election.
IEBC told the Supreme Court on Friday, September 2, that the three Venezuelans were only given limited and supervised access to the said servers.
Hence, making it essentially impossible for them to act independently and rig the presidential polls in favor of William Ruto.
Nonetheless, Mahat Somane, is one of many lawyers representing IEBC boss Wafula Chebukati in the ongoing presidential petition filed by Raila Odinga challenging the outcome of the presidential polls.
Furthermore, in his affidavit, Raila claims that the Venezuelans were used to tamper with Forms 34A that were transmitted to the IEBC portal from polling stations countrywide.
Additionally, Somane stated that the trio was only responsible for deploying the necessary infrastructure IEBC needed to conduct the polls in a free and transparent manner.
“The Venezuelans were involved in deploying of infrastructure and the servers’ platform. They did not have any access to the RTS. You can look at the affidavits of Michael Ouma, Hilda Kavongo,” said Somane.
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“It actually shows the kind of rights they had; there was no unauthorized access and in fact, the scrutiny report will bear that out.” Added Somane.
Likewise Somane dismissed claims that the postponement of gubernatorial elections in Mombasa and Kakamega affected voter turnout in regard to the presidential election.
“I have indicated that this is a hypothesis that has been laid out before the court; it is not borne out by the data. In fact, the voter turnout was comparatively the same,” he stated.
Moreover, lawyer Somane made his statement in response to a query from Supreme Court judge Smokin Wanjala.
Wanjala sought to understand what was being maintained in the server by the Venezuelans as claimed by IEBC.
Nevertheless, the electoral commission has maintained that the foreigners were restricted access to the servers before the elections took place.