NASA Pushes for Prosecution of Top IEBC Officials

Opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) says it will be moving to court this week in a bid to seek the prosecution of top Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission officials who it says they bungled the August 8th presidential election.

Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga's lawyer Paul Mwangi said that the coalition is furnishing the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions with material showing how top IEBC officials messed up with the election that has since been nullified by the Supreme Court.

IEBC chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba, his deputy Betty Nyabuto-Sungura, elections director Immaculate Kassait, ICT head James Muhati and head of legal Services Praxedes Tororey are some of the officials Nasa want prosecuted.

The five were last week sidelined from a team selected by IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to preside over the October 17th repeat election.

“We will be going for Chiloba and Muhati for contempt of court because they disobeyed the order by the Supreme Court that they open up the servers for scrutiny. We shall be seeking their imprisonment because there is adequate evidence to prove contempt of court.” Raila's lawyer Paul Mwangi said.

Mwangi further said that there were more than 1,000 election officials, mainly presiding officers and returning officers in their list of those it wants legal action taken for deliberately refusing or failing to relay accurate results of the presidential election to the national tallying centre.

“We are compiling their names and the list of offences each committed as established by the Supreme Court in its report, information which we will hand over to the DPP. We want them to take personal criminal responsibility for their actions,” Mwangi added.

Nasa's legal team is also collaborating with civil society organisations in France to open charges against French firms Safran and Morpho, which supplied election equipment to the IEBC.

“Our partners in the French civil society intend to go to court to seek the prosecution of top Safran and Morpho officials who participated in this election fraud,” said Mwangi.

In a letter dated September 7th, Nasa co-principal and head of Odinga’s presidential campaign, Musalia Mudavadi, wrote to the French government demanding action against Safran and Morpho.

“We wish to bring to your attention that in providing the said ICT support services to the commission, the subject companies have been involved in unethical acts that may amount to criminal activities under the Elections Act and the Elections Offences Act of the Laws of Kenya,” he wrote.