The Nation reported the development on August 29 loosely citing an alleged “forensic analysis” by Kenya’s DCI that it said it had “learnt” of, though the newspaper did not cite specific or anonymous sources nor did it state how it obtained the alleged information.
The newspaper reported:
The three Venezuelans who were arrested upon landing in Nairobi two weeks before the General Election had not been contracted by the electoral commission but had access to its servers five months before the disputed polls, a forensics analysis shows.
The analysis, of computers confiscated from Salvador Javier, Jose Gregorio and Joel Gustavo by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), shows that the three were among dozens of non-Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) staff who had extensive access to the agency’s servers, the Nation understands.
The Nation said that the Kenya DCI’s alleged investigation into the Venezuelans’ access to Kenya’s electoral commission servers “is currently among various electoral fraud matters being investigated by the DCI, whom the Azimio coalition wants to be summoned to the Supreme Court to testify in their petition.”
The newspaper referred to Raila Odinga, who was the presidential candidate for Kenya’s opposition Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Coalition party in the country’s August 9 general election. Odinga is currently contesting the results of the August 9 presidential vote. The chairman of Kenya’s election commission, Wafula Chebukati, declared current Kenya Deputy President William Ruto the winner of the presidential election on August 15 with 50.49 percent of the vote, though “[f]our out of the seven commissioners disowned the result,” Reuters noted on August 30.
Odinga alleged that the vote’s result was fraudulent immediately after the final tally was announced and has since submitted an official petition to Kenya’s Supreme Court contesting the election’s result. Kenya’s Supreme Court is expected to issue its verdict on the matter on September 5.
Odinga on August 22 specifically alleged that Venezuelan nationals had interfered in Kenya’s latest presidential election. Speaking to a crowd of his supporters, Odinga said his legal team had “enough evidence to show foreigners, those people from Venezuela, were brought into the country to try to steal our victory but it won’t be possible.” Odinga cited the alleged interference of Venezuelans in Kenya’s August 9 presidential in his official Supreme Court petition, according to the Nation.
“In the petition, Mr Odinga’s legal team argues that three Venezuelans had the ability to remotely access and manipulate [the Kenya] IEBC [Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission]’s data,” the newspaper noted on August 22.
The Nation published an excerpt of the petition, which read:
Combined with the capability of the foreigners and anyone in possession of the contents and information in the electronic devices to remotely access and manipulate the entire IEBC data; and the manifest discrepancies and irregularities manifest during the General Election and the tallying, verification of count and declaration of the presidential election result; it is the inevitable conclusion that not only was the presidential election not secure, it is not verifiable, accountable, neutral or transparent.
IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati had claimed that the three Venezuelan nationals recently arrested by Kenyan authorities were “contracted by IEBC to provide support on behalf of Smartmatic International, the company contracted to provide electoral management technology by the commission,” the Nation recalled on August 29.
“Detectives who have been on the case since July now believe that was not the case, and that the three worked for a different entity linked to the North Eastern politician,” the newspaper noted on Monday, referring to an unnamed Kenyan politician.
Kenyan police arrested the still-unnamed Venezuelans in question at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in late July after authorities found Kenyan election materials stored inside their luggage. The Venezuelans had flown to Nairobi from Istanbul, Turkey.
“Smartmatic, the Greek company that won the tender to run the all-encompassing Kenya Integrated Elections Management Systems (Kiems), also insisted that three Venezuelans arrested at the airport with election kit stickers in their luggage were their full-time employees through a subsidiary company,” the Nation noted on August 22.
Kenya’s top court orders recount of election results in 15 polling stations
[ShabelleMedia] Kenya’s Supreme Court
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...on Tuesday ordered a recount of votes in 15 polling stations across the country as a dispute over this month’s presidential election results continues.
A petition was filed by 77-year-old Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua to nullify the results of the Aug. 9 elections in which William Ruto was declared as president.
The top court ordered that the recounting exercise be concluded by Thursday, and also directed the election commission to give the petitioners access to any server(s) at the tallying center for storing and transmitting voting information.
A high-level delegation of African jurists arrived in Kenya on Monday to observe court proceedings that kick off on Wednesday. A bench of seven judges will preside over the appeal, which must be decided by Sept. 5. If they order the cancellation of the result, a new election must be held within 60 days.
Five-time presidential candidate Odinga rejected the "flawed" election results, calling them a "major setback" to democracy in the East African country that could trigger a political crisis. He had filed legal challenges in 2013 and 2017 as well.
Ruto won nearly 7.18 million votes, 50.49% of the total, while Odinga got 48.85% or over 6.94 million votes.