vote, and more importantly to have that vote count on an equal basis with
those of other voters is as important as the result of the election itself.
[228] It is also fact of common notoriety that there were serious protests
following the declaration of the 2007 presidential election results. The
violence arising from those protests not only claimed over 1000 lives and
led to the destruction of and looting of property worth hundreds of millions
of shillings, but also drove the entire country to the precipice of destruction.
It is also common knowledge that following that violence, the Government
formed the Independent Review Commission (IREC), commonly known as
the Kriegler Commission, to inquire into the conduct of the 2007 elections
and the cause of that violence. One of the critical areas of that
Commission’s focus was the integrity of vote counting, tallying and
announcement of presidential election results. Let the Kriegler Report
speak for itself:
“The acceptability of an election depends very
considerably on the extent to which the public feel the
officially announced election results accurately reflect
the votes cast for candidates and the parties. It
depends, too, on factors such as the character of
the electoral campaign and the quality of the
voter register, but reliable counting and tallying is a
sine qua non if an election is to be considered legitimate
by its key assessors the voters 110 ….The system of
tallying, recording, transcribing, transmitting
and announcing results was so conceptually
defective and executed (sic)… 111 Counting and
tallying during the 27-30 December 2007 (and even
hereafter) and the announcement of individual results
Report of the Independent Review Commission on the General Elections held in Kenya on 27th
December, 2007) page 9 (Kriegler Report).
111 Kriegler Report, page 9.
110
Presidential
Petition
No.
1
of
2017
95
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