BY SAM ALFAN.
NASA fears on the systems to be used during election are unfounded, court overturns case seeking exclusive use of electronic system.
The High Court has okayed the use of a manual backup system during the August 8 election.
It dismissed a case by the opposition NASA to have IEBC use exclusively electronic system.
The court ruled that the impact in case the exclusive electronic system fails would throw the entire elections into jeopardy and imperil the democracy of the people of Kenya.
“The court therefore finds that it would not be feasible to declare that the elections to be held on the 8th of August 2017 be exclusively electronic, “ruled the judges.
The court further ruled that regulations 69 and 83 of the Elections Regulations 2012 amounted to complementary mechanism envisaged by the constitution.
Regarding public participation, the three judge bench dismissed allegations that there was no public participation and ruled that the law was approved by the parliament which represents Kenyans.
Court also dismissed submissions to have the elections postponed if the systems fails.
The ruling was read by justice George Kimondo , Hedwing Ong’udi and Alfred Mabeya.
In the suit, NASA alleged that IEBC had failed to put in place the complementary system, consult relevant stakeholders or even engage the public to come up with the said system.
The opposition said using the manual system was a scheme to rig the elections, and it would boycott the elections if the manual system was forced on them.
