Cord leader Raila Odinga has for the first time provided a detailed account of how he says Jubilee rigged and stole the 2013 election.
The establishment jammed the electronic results transmission system and stuffed ballot boxes with two million extra votes to give Uhuru Kenyatta a first-round win, he told the Star on Friday.
The former Prime Minister said he gave all IEBC data to independent forensic elections auditors in the UK and they confirmed about two million votes were not properly accounted for.
To double check, he commissioned a second forensic audit of the results by a German firm, which confirmed the dubious two million votes.
Raila spoke after Jubilee forced through weakened election laws — requiring manual operations if technology fails. Cord says this will be used to rig the 2017 election, like the 2013 polls.
Raila said Jubilee had intended the electronic system to crash last time, requiring an easily manipulated manual system.
The opposition has called for mass protests starting January 4 until laws are withdrawn.
In an exclusive interview, the ODM leader said extra ballots were printed abroad, marked in favour of Kenyatta and delivered via Geneva, Switzerland, to Jubilee strongholds.
There opposition agents were locked out of polling stations or bribed to rubber-stamp fake results, he said.
“Even NIS was aware of this [extra ballots]. I can produce a person who was in Geneva and saw all this,” Raila said.
The scheme was unearthed by the foreign experts auditing IEBC data, the ODM chief said. All information was presented to the Supreme Court in Raila’s failed challenge.
“IEBC records showed 10 million people voted for all other candidates, including governors, MPs and MCAs, yet the same records show 12 million people voted for the President candidates alone.
“Two million votes were cast abroad and taken for stuffing in Central Kenya. But after computers rejected them, they were reflected directly in the IEBC server in favour of Jubilee,” Raila said.
“From our analysis, Cord had 5.8 million presidential votes against Jubilee’s 4.7 million, a difference of 1.1 million. But they declared Uhuru the winner,” he said.
IEBC says it’s a “myth” two million people voted for Kenyatta alone. The total variance between those who voted for the President and the other five seats was 458,085, the IEBC said.
Yesterday Jubilee leaders dismissed Raila’s allegations, saying they won fair and square.
We are used to Raila’s claims, made because he knows we’ll defeat him again next year,” majority leader Adan Duale said.
The machinations were based on three pillars, Raila said.
First and most important was forcing a first-round Jubilee win, as it was feared a run-off would result in an anti-Kikuyu vote in which only Kalenjins and Kikuyus would vote for Uhuru.
“This propaganda was sold as a winning formula. TNA knew it lacked the numbers, even with William Ruto joining. Tyranny of numbers was the psychological component of the whole game as was the peace campaign,” Siaya Senator James Orengo said in an interview. He was a key member of Raila’s campaign team.
Second, according to Raila, was to ensure Kikuyu and Kalenjin voter turnout was 95 per cent, hoping turnout in Cord strongholds would stay flat at 65-70 per cent.
“Thus, they denied our supporters identity and voter’s cards, disenfranchising them,” Raila said.
¬ e third pillar involved technology. ¬ e company supplying IEBC with electronic data and call centre services, Ken Call, also had a contract with Kenyatta’s TNA to supply tallying services of polling station results.
“Results from returning offi cers at polling stations transmitted electronically were fi rst relayed to Ken Call’s servers for transmission to Bomas,” Eliud Owalo, then head of Raila’s election campaign, said.
“¬This is where electronic results’ tampering took place, as it was easy to access the same server, serving both IEBC and TNA and managed by the same company. When questions arose about contradictions between figures announced at polling stations and those on IEBC screens at Bomas, the system mysteriously crashed,” Owalo told the Star.
According to Maina Kiai, former KNHCR chief, tallying technology was a red herring.
“¬That election was meant to be manual from start to finish, loopholes included,” he wrote in his Saturday Nation column on April 22.
“A manual result would allow different results to be announced at constituency, county and at Bomas. All these electronic gadgets and equipment were meant to pull the wool over our eyes.”
According to Raila, once results showed his early lead, Jubilee quickly switched to Plan B — crash the electronics and go manual.
“IEBC helped by keeping some polling stations open well after offi - cial closing time of 5pm,” Raila said.
In Rift Valley, Cord agents were intimidated and ejected as URP activists took over polling stations, he said.
“It was hard to control what they were doing. Some got two to three presidential ballots to reach their target. You had no idea who was voting and who wasn’t,” said a report by Raila’s experts.
Raila said security forces aided rigging. “¬ The Bomas tallying centre was under heavy security. ¬ is was the most opaque electoral commission and ranks lower than even the late Kivuitu Commission,” Orengo said.
On July 17, 2015, Raila met IEBC chairman Isaack Hassan — two years after his loss — and itemised problems.
He said, for example, provincial administrators and NIS were heavily involved in rigging.
“Raila asked why former NIS boss Michael Gichangi was at Bomas and why a fi bre-optic connection linked IEBC to NIS,” Raila’s spokesman Dennis Onyango said afterward.
He cited unofficial polling stations, such as Kenyatta University, and IEBC’s silence about them two years on.
Smuggled ballot papers were taken to “Jubilee areas where our MPs saw them counted at KU days before election,” Raila said.
