As the Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officially concludes the 2017 elections cycle today, February 12, 2019, by releasing an evaluation report, a serious constitutional question about the 2017 elections is unanswered: Has the commission properly gazetted the complete results of the Genearal Elections in all six positions, as the law requires it? According to what we see, the IEBC hasn’t done it, except for the Presidential election.
For the other arund 1800 five elected positions, only the winners of each election were gazetted. See the screenshot on the example of MPs from Kenya Gazette Vol. CXIX, page 4896 (link to pdf-file on kenyalaw.org):
The other candidates who had lost were left unmentioned in the gazettements. But section 39 (1) of the Elections Act states:
“The Commission shall determine, declare and publish the results of an election immediately after close of polling.” The act requires to publish the results, which logically includes the losers and not just the names of the winners.
2013 Election Results were fully gazetted
This is in sharp contrast to the 2013 elections, where each and every candidate for all the posts was gazetted along with the number of votes they garnered. See the screenshot from the voluminous 2013 gazettement that the IEBC has uploaded here – pdf file. (see screenshot with example of MCA candidates)
It can be argued with good reason that it is the right of the Kenyan citizens to get exactly that, a complete information of the results and that the selection of gazetted information is not up to the discretion of the IEBC.
Links on the IEBC site:
2013 gazettements in one volume (pdf)
2017 gazettements in several pdf-volumes
For your information, we post the last sum-up of these concerns that that Andrew Limo as the spokesman for the IEBC has not replied to, for now two months:
The unsolved Question in a Q+A with the IEBC
Question by RoGGKenya
Question 10 was: For the public, to see if the double or multiple registered voters may have influenced the outcome of the elections, the complete results of the elections should be known, including the number of votes counted for those who were not elected. As far as we can see, the IEBC has only gazetted the names of the elected persons and their numbers. Does the IEBC plan to publish the complete results? When?
Answer of IEBC
IEBC as outlined under Article 35, provided the results of the General elections results form. This can be accessed using the link https://www.iebc.or.ke/resources/?2017_Poll_Results
We have emailed you scanned copies for your analysis
Follow-Up Question
Under the link and in the copies we only find data about the Presidential election. We do not see any data about the complete outcome of all of the other polls in the five elected positions. Would you please provide them?
Our Question was: Does it, according to the IEBC, comply with Sec. 39(1) of the Elections act which requires the IEBC to publish the “election results”, if the IEBC only gazettes the identities of the winners and not the names of the losers with the number of their votes?
IEBC Answer
We have on the results portal scanned copies of the result forms, complete with all candidates, turnouts, spoilt votes etc
Follow-Up Question
- The Results Portal is offline.
- It was also designed in a way that one person would have to keep clicking and downloading for almost one month to retrieve all the scanned forms etc.
Do you really think such a results portal without summarized detailed result sheets in easily comprehendable form constitutes a publication according to the law?
Also we assume that such a results portal is not an official publication. Don’t you think that instead the detailed results should be gazetted?
IEBC Answer
(none)
