Top IEBC Official Steps Down

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs has stepped down from her position, 33 days to the October 26th repeat presidential election.

The Standard reports that Praxedes Tororey had offered to relinquish het seat two days after the Supreme Court indicted the electoral commission for bungling the August 8tn general election.

Tororey was was among the 12 IEBC officials that the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) has been pushing to be fired.

On Thursday, IEBC pushed the date for fresh election from October 17th to 26th, to "ensure the new poll conforms to the law and election regulations as ordered by the Supreme Court".

“There is no doubt that the judgment impacts the election operations and in particular technology to be deployed,” IEBC stated on Thursday pledging to issue further details on Friday.

While reading the majority ruling, the Supreme Court urged the electoral commission to put in place a complementary system for the repeat election in compliance with Section 44A of the Elections Act.

Chief Justice David Maraga said that the court could not ignore the guidelines on the use of technology in the transmission of results as anchored in law.

The CJ further noted that the apex court found that no reasonable explanation as to why not all Forms 34B had security features.

“It was obvious to us that IEBC misunderstood the petition and therefore jumbled its responses. IEBC should do some soul searching and go back to the drawing board.

“As judges, we have taken an oath of fidelity to the Constitution. For what is the need of having a Constitution if it is not respected?” asked Maraga on Wednesday issuing a detailed judgement on the bungled August election.

The court, however, categorically stated that it did not find any evidence incriminating any of the electoral commission officials.

“No evidence was placed before us to prove that electoral offences were committed by officials of IEBC. What we saw in evidence was a systematic institutional problem and we were unable to find specific fingerprints of individuals who may have played a role in the commission of irregularities,” he ruled.

“We are therefore unable to impute any criminal intent or culpability on either the IEBC Chairman or any other Commissioner or member of IEBC,” the CJ added.